routledge+history+of+literature+in+english

‘Insiders’ from ‘outside’
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One day, perhaps, the world may taste the pickles of history.
They may be too strong for some palates, their smell may be
overpowering, tears may rise to eyes; I hope nevertheless that it
will be possible to say of them that they possess the authentic
taste of truth . . . that they are, despite everything, acts of love.
Rushdie’s reputation was fully restored with the publication of East West
(1994) and The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995). Where Midnight’s Children took
the historical moment of Indian independence, The Moor’s Last Sigh takes
the departure of the Moors from Spain in the fifteenth century as its starting
point: what is lost and what is gained are explored in a panoply of fantasies,
tales, realism, and magic, which reaffirm Rushdie’s place in modern fiction,
and show him returning to the height of his creative powers.
V.S. Naipaul is the grand old man of British literature - yet he was not
even born in Britain; born in Trinidad, he settled in England in 1955, but is
a constant traveller. Naipaul is perhaps the clearest example of the changing
cultural identity of Britain, of English, and of literature in English. From The
Mystic Masseur (1957) to A Way in the World (1994) he has written about
the processes of history, power, and culture. He moves with ease from
high social comedy, such as the glorious Caribbean novel, A House for Mr
Biswas (1961), to deeply serious examinations of colonialism and thirdworld
problems, such as A Bend in the River (1979), set in Africa and
redolent with echoes of Joseph Conrad. Naipaul won the Booker Prize for
In a Free State (1971) and was awarded the first David Cohen British Literature
Prize, in 1983. This moment from A Bend in the River shows something of
his perception and the clashes within a post-colonial society:
Everyone had been waiting to see what the President would do.
But for more than a fortnight the President had said and done
nothing. And what the President said now was staggering. The
Youth Guard in our region was to be disbanded. They had forgotten
their duty to the people; they had broken faith with him, the President;
they had talked too much. The officers would lose their stipend;
there would be no government jobs for any of them; they would be
banished from the town and sent back to the bush, to do constructive
work there. In the bush they would learn the wisdom of the monkey.
‘Citoyens-citoyennes, monkey smart. Monkey smart like shit. Monkey
can talk. You didn’t know that? Well, I tell you now. Monkey can