This means, above all, seeing the imperial and capitalist metropolises as a specific historical form, at different stages: Paris, London, and Berlin, New York. It involves looking, from time to time, from outside the metropolis: from the deprived hinterlands, where different forces are moving, and from the poor world, which has always been peripheral to the metropolitan systems. This need involve no reduction of the importance of the major artistic and literary works, which were shaped within metropolitan perceptions. But one level has certainly to be challenged: the metropolitan interpretation of its own processes as universals .—Raymond Williams, The Politics of Modernism
In a book chapter in the wonderful edited collection Re-routing the Postcolonial, I made an argument for “re-routing” the postcolonial through the language mazes of the postcolonial geography of India. In trying to make an argument for a multilingual postcolonial canon, I did a survey of major databases for literature and the representation of world literature as a disproportionately monolingual one (Menon, 2010). So, as I begin to examine that argument in much more detail through the course of these pages, I have to once again consider the question: What does the current map look like? My study then looked at the possible maps of representation through roughly the early 1990s when postcolonial studies began to be acknowledged as an emerging area of research, until 2007. My findings were very clear—the putative postcolonial canon includes texts from India, Africa and the Caribbean, with new entrants from Latin America adding to the diversity. When it came to the Indian subcontinent, study of works of writers such as Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Chandra, and Shyam Selvadurai far outnumber study of works by writers in languages other than English. It was true that while the emerging canon did represent many postcolonial geographies, they did not reflect the linguistic diversity of those geographies. Quite the contrary. Almost all of the representative works in scholarship were exclusively written in English. I retain the discipline’s skepticism of “canons” per se but argue that, when the same texts and writers are anthologized and critiqued to the exclusion of others, it is equivalent to creating a canon. I begin with the assumption that engaging with the rich literatures in diverse languages coming from different postcolonial spaces will simultaneously underscore the plurality of the discipline and open new avenues for postcolonial enquiries. As Neil Lazarus charges:
My project argues that, while postcolonial scholarship has successfully challenged Eurocentrism, the stagnation in the theory that Lazarus talks about can be confronted if we look to the wide base of literatures available in multiple postcolonial languages. In short, it is now time to extend the dimensions of the discipline into a multilingual field.To read across postcolonial literary studies is to find, to an extraordinary degree, the same questions asked, the same methods, techniques, and conventions used, the same concepts mobilized, the same conclusions drawn—about the work of a remarkably small number of writers (who are actually more varied, even so, than one would ever discover from the existing critical discussion). (422)
I define multilingual as moving beyond Anglophone and Francophone literatures to varied literatures in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Tagalog and Swahili, to name just a few. I attempt to initiate such a discourse by analyzing literatures from three regional languages in India, both in translation and in the original, and aim to direct a linguistic re-mapping of postcolonial literary criticism and demonstrate the ways in which such a re-mapping can open theoretical concepts to new complexities. I engage with two critical concepts that have defined postcolonial theory—hybridity and subalternity—and describe the current discourse about these two concepts, showing new ways of reconfiguring them and expanding them by using texts from different languages. Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss are juxtaposed with texts from other languages, such as O.V. Vijayan’s Legends of Khasak (Malayalam) and Girish Karnad’s Heap of Broken Images (Kannada). I argue that these texts can be used to reform, redefine and revise our understanding of the concepts hybridity and subalternity. My project seeks to enable a conversation that will expand the literary archive of postcolonial literature and allow a self-reflexive criticism of its theoretical premises. Such a conversation can also inspire new concepts in the postcolonial critical vocabulary. In my final chapter on postcolonial translations, I identify such a new approach and develop a new critical translation model that addresses the discipline’s unique challenges.
Recent studies have identified some of the issues with postcolonial scholarship. Some of the most critical writings of the discipline have come from materialist critics who allege, among other things, that attempting to find complex nuances of interactions between the colonizer and the colonized has resulted in a rejection of dualism in all forms. Consequently, the criticism alleges, postcolonial theory has delegitimized even complex models of struggle-based politics. Lazarus lists in schematic fashion these materialist criticisms of postcolonial theory: “[a] constitutive anti-Marxism; an undifferentiated disavowal of all forms of nationalism and a corresponding exaltation of migrancy, liminality, hybridity, and multiculturality; an aversion to dialectics; and a refusal of antagonistic or struggle-based model of politics” (423). None of the above components appear unreasonable or problematic by themselves; however, the discomfort arises from the way these categories have been consecrated to the exclusion of exploring others and the narrow ways that postcolonial studies has defined these concepts. According to Lazarus and some of the other materialist critics, literary scholars working in postcolonial studies have tended to write with a woefully restricted and attenuated corpus of works because of the narrowness of the theoretical assumptions. In this Introduction and in the book, I will argue that, while it may be true in the case of works already in the orbit of postcolonial criticism that works need to be looked at from beyond existing critical perspectives, the argument can also be turned around. In other words, I contend, the very narrowness of the range of works invoked for the field is by itself restrictive and limits the theoretical assumptions. I examine the literature of a single postcolonial state, India, to support the argument that for postcolonial studies to be more representative and varied, the diverse works in multiple regional languages must be examined. In the interests of both representations and aesthetics, postcolonial studies needs to look beyond literature written in just one language—English. Lazarus examines the book Interviews with Writers of the Postcolonial World and queries: “What thematic concerns, historical conditions, or existential predicaments can plausibly be said to license the inclusion of such authors as Ngugi, Ghose, and Ihimaera under any shared rubric, let alone that of postcoloniality?” (425). Lazarus asks this rhetorical question to underscore the wide differences between the writers themselves and unacknowledged disparities in their respective postcolonialities. To answer Lazarus, all the writers are representative of geographies that are, for varying and different reasons, postcolonial. They also form an emerging canon of postcolonial literature representative of these places. Last, but not least, they all write in English.
Such a consecration of postcolonial works from metropolitan centers and select metropolitan writers has dominated the discourse of postcolonial criticism, thereby centralizing a select genre and universalizing it as representative of postcolonialism per se. Thus, Raymond Williams’ critique of the politics of modernism may be read as analogous to postcolonial criticism. The key criticism is the similar tendency of “metropolitan interpretation of its own processes as universals.” (Introduction). The stagnation in some of the categories of postcolonial criticism has not gone unnoticed among many scholars in the field, and in the last few years, there have been many articles and essays challenging some of the field’s current preoccupations vis-à-vis its foundational assumptions. Susie Tharu (roundtable by Yeager), for example, discusses the transformation of Edward Said’s groundbreaking text Orientalism as it traveled in postcolonial theory. Said’s original thesis emphasizes that Orientalism has little to do with the Orient. In fact, one of Said’s foci is the Euro-American academy and the power-knowledge axis of that institution. Initial research in postcolonial studies, including some of Spivak’s less cited essays, built on Said’s formulation of Orientalism. The beginning of Spivak’s seminal “Can the Subaltern Speak?” is a scathing critique of Western intellectual complicity in Western capitalist production, but it is a section that is usually ignored by subsequent critics. Instead, postcolonial studies has developed a purportedly anti-binary approach that seeks to dismantle East/West or North/South dualisms. This shift in perspective appears to be headed toward a more complex analysis of fast-changing global realities; however, Tharu has this to say about the trajectory of the discipline:
Tharu calls for a return to postcolonial studies’ embrace of “Saidian history.” I interpret Tharu’s call not as a return to colonial/anti-colonial binaries, but rather as a call for a more self-reflexive critique of the inclusions and exclusions of the field and a call to adjust our critical lens to account for political and academic realities. Such an exercise is perhaps necessary for many of the discipline’s subfields of literature, economics or history. Postcolonial history has perhaps inaugurated such a line of criticism with the subaltern studies group’s provocative questioning of its own disciplinary practices. In this book, I intend to take a self-reflexive look at the field of literature and the forming of the postcolonial canon.Abandoning the responsibility of engaging western power/knowledge in its entirety, the new postcolonial studies, with anthropology in the lead, has concerned itself with a problematic designed to unearth residual or continuing colonialism in the ex-colonies. This is the untold story that accompanies and in fact precedes the widely circulated account of postcolonial studies as coinciding with the arrival of third world critics in the First World academy. (Yeager 643)
At the Postcolonial Studies Association (PSA) conference in Northampton in 2008, I presented a paper arguing for a linguistic expansion of the postcolonial canon. Bill Ashcroft, one of the keynote speakers at the conference, attended our panel presentation. During the question-answer session, he asked me why I needed to use the word canon: Could I not make the same argument about including more works from different languages without making it the postcolonial canon? His argument was that, as an interventionist discipline, postcolonial studies is invested in dismantling canons (starting with the European canon) and that we do not need to replace it with a postcolonial one. It is a difficult question because “The Postcolonial Canon” is a difficult term. It is also similar to the notion of nation in postmodernism. The post nation is a luxury that stateless refugees or those fighting for their territorial space cannot comprehend or sympathize with. Similarly, a canon does not cease to exist because we refer to an exclusive selection of works or writers by different names or pretend they do not exist. Deconstructing the European canon does not mean that it no longer exists or is not perceived as exceptional. The development of the canon is, in itself, interesting. Whether we agree on the existence or irrelevance of canons, whether postcolonial canon is a self-contradictory term or not, I want to argue that, as the field is formulated as of now, select writers and literary works dominate the discourse to the exclusion of other writers, works and languages. The exclusive selection of texts, writers and themes, I contend, becomes the foundation for critical analyses and conclusions about postcolonialism. Such a circular movement between texts, writers and themes results in: (1) an emerging postcolonial “canon” whether we acknowledge it or not and (2) theoretical conclusions based on that narrow selection of literatures that are then extrapolated to the larger field. The domination of a few select literary texts and writers defines the field, and they are often uncritically referred to and unselfconsciously understood as the postcolonial perspective. My argument is that a linguistic re-mapping is the key to expanding the postcolonial canon. Before we take a critical look at the postcolonial canon, a look at the development, formation and history of canons and canon-building is instructive.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term canon as “a body of literary works traditionally regarded as the most important, significant and worthy of study (italics mine), those works esp. western literature considered to be established as being of the highest quality and most enduring value; such a body of literature in a particular language, or from a particular culture, period, genre, etc.” (OED). The introduction of the word canon in the English language remains obscure, and according to Ingrid Johnston, the Oxford English Dictionary published between 1884 and 1928 does “not contain in its twenty-five listings any word approximating the modern meaning of an approved catalog of books” (42). In the earlier meanings, the closest “canon” is defined as a “collection or list of books of the Bible accepted by the Christian Church as genuine and inspired” (42). According to Johnston, it was not until 1972 when the above meaning was supplemented to bestow the exclusive—and thus exalted—status of “secular authentic authors.” The definition of canon moved from the exclusively biblical to the selectively secular in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, unsurprisingly coinciding with the rise of the British Empire and global power gravitating toward the European capitals of London and Paris.
Jusdanis states that a study of canonicity is equivalent to a study of power; the role of interest and the dynamics of struggle are all intricate to its formation. Certainly, the deployment of Shakespeare in the colonies is a fine example of the nineteenth-century version of what globalization cheerleaders today call “soft power.” Economic might and cultural supremacy are equally treasured by imperial powers, and certainly for British colonialism, British literature was one of the tools deployed as evidence of civilization. Homi Bhabha’s essay about the subversive potential of reading and receiving the Bible in a native language is an insightful interpretation of the complex processes. However, the premise of imperialism and empires is that they control the narrative and the discourse, which is what led Macaulay to claim “that all the great literatures of India and Persia could not hold a single shelf of books” (124). Canonicity, therefore, is not so much about texts as it is about power, status symbols and the dominant discourse according to which not only individual authors but entire movements and discourses find themselves in or out as the “flavor of the era.”
Furthermore, Toni Morrison has unequivocally compared canon-building to empire-building. The process itself is a curious double bind. Texts deemed “worthy of study” are transmitted, translated, critiqued and anthologized, all of which processes ensure that they are embedded in literary memories. And those that are transmitted, translated and passed on are, in turn, considered “worthy of study.” Obviously, texts that stand the test of time also, in many ways, endure the test of power. As Gerald Bruns (qtd. in Landow) says:
The OED also records the changes and expansion of the meaning of the canon brought about by the intellectual debates, specifically those of feminist and postmodernist disciplines. Thus, a 1992 supplement to the meaning of canon now adds: “A body of works considered to be established as the most important or significant in a particular field.” All this brings us to the original discussion about the validity of a “postcolonial canon.” As we can see, the OED has not declared the word or its meaning obsolete, and it still means a select or exemplary collection of works in any field. So, for my purposes here, with all the necessary skepticism, I will rely on the expanded meaning of the term canon and continue to use the term “postcolonial canon.”A text, after all, is canonical, not by virtue of being final and correct and part of an official library, but because it becomes binding upon a group of people. The whole point of canonization is to underwrite the authority of a text, not merely with respect to its origin … but with respect to the present and future in which it will reign and govern as a binding text … from a hermeneutic standpoint … the theme of canonization is power. (149)
Edward Said has been one of the most stringent critics of canons. Said, along with Foucault and Derrida, has supported a new kind of...