Fictionalising Myth and History: A Study of Four Postcolonial Novels
Padma Malini Sundararaghavan
Price
1650
ISBN
9788125050230
Language
English
Pages
292
Format
Hardback
Dimensions
140 x 216 mm
Year of Publishing
2013
Territorial Rights
WORLD
Imprint
Orient BlackSwan

Fictionalising Myth and History offers refreshingly new perspectives on four postcolonial novels by writers hailing from different countries: Witi Ihimaera of New Zealand, Ngugi wa Thiong''o of Kenya, Shashi Tharoor of India and Salman Rushdie, the India-born writer living in the UK. It reveals how the boundaries of fiction, myth and history get blurred when forces of imperialism and resistance play out their power struggles in different countries. Political and culture myths are being constantly reshaped in a dynamic historical process, underlying which is the truth that political myths that shape history are crafted by the word of command. The novels explored here being metafictional texts, Sundararaghavan uses multiple theories in her analysis. This includes the ideas of Ernst Cassirer, Roland Barthes, Levi Strauss, Hayden White, and Greg Grandin among others. The book ends with a discussion of the future of postcolonial studies in a century when old colonies have shed their colonial bondage. Sundararaghavan examines the evidence of historians to show the need for new directions in postcolonial studies in the light of the emergence of financial colonisation and other hegemonic structures. The book closes with an appendix that summarises how the myth of the Aryan invasion of India has shaped the teaching and writing of history in India.

Padma Malini Sundararaghavan taught for several years at Stella Maris College, Chennai, India, and researched on postcolonial fiction, obtaining her doctoral degree from the University of Madras. She has written articles on Indian literature for the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Postcolonial Literatures in English and also co-authored a travel and heritage book titled It Happened Along the Kaveri.