1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910458701803321

Autore

Pirbhai Mariam <1970->

Titolo

Mythologies of migration, vocabularies of indenture : novels of the South Asian diaspora in Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific / / Mariam Pirbhai

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, Ontario ; ; Buffalo, New York ; ; London, England : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2009

©2009

ISBN

1-4426-9780-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (273 p.)

Disciplina

823/.914093553

Soggetti

Commonwealth fiction (English) - South Asian authors - History and criticism

South Asian diaspora in literature

South Asians in literature

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- PART I: THE SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORA -- 1. The Multiple Voices of Indenture History: An Introduction -- 2. New Approaches to an Old Diaspora: Theorizing Texts and Contexts -- PART II: AFRICA -- 3. The Indenture Narrative of Mauritius: Deepchand Beeharry's That Others Might Live -- 4. 'Passenger Indians' and Dispossessed Citizens in Uganda and South Africa: Peter Nazareth's In a Brown Mantle and Farida Karodia's Daughters of the Twilight -- PART III: THE CARIBBEAN -- 5. New Confi gurations of Identity for the Indo-Guyanese 'This Time Generation': Rooplall Monar's Janjhat and Narmala Shewcharan's Tomorrow Is Another Day -- 6. Indo-Trinidadian Fictions of Community within the Metanarratives of 'Faith': Lakshmi Persaud's Butterfl y in the Wind and Sharlow Mohammed's The Elect -- PART IV: ASIA-PACIFIC -- 7. The Politics of (the English) Language in Malaysia and Singapore: K.S. Maniam's The Return and Gopal Baratham's A Candle or the Sun -- 8. From the Ganges to the South Seas: Fiji as 'Fatal Paradise' in Satendra Nandan's The Wounded Sea -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography --



Index

Sommario/riassunto

South Asian migration during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was largely comprised of indentured labourers sent to British colonies after the 1833 abolition of slavery. Mythologies of Migration, Vocabularies of Indenture uses the critical paradigm of 'indenture history' to examine the local literary and cultural histories that have influenced and shaped the development of novel-length fiction by writers of the South Asian diaspora in national contexts as diverse as Mauritius, South Africa, Guyana, and Fiji.Mariam Pirbhai perceptively identifies common patterns, developments, and concerns in this cross-continental body of writing, including a 'vocabulary of indenture' that invokes the mythology and plight of the indentured labourer among a newly reconstituted community of colonial émigrés. Pirbhai's innovative study considers authors who fall outside the established canon of post-colonial writing, challenging readers to reconsider traditional peripheries as centres of literary and cultural production that have made significant contributions to the Anglophone novel.