Colonialism Unit

Published in 2014, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a literary crime novel by Jamaican writer Marlon James. To serve as the foundation for his novel, James builds the narrative around a singular historical event: the 1976 assassination attempt on Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley, whom he fictionalizes as the Singer for thematic effect. James draws on his experiences growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1970s, and on his parents’ careers in law... Read A Brief History of Seven Killings Summary

Written and first performed in 1960 as part of the national celebrations of Nigeria’s independence from Britain, A Dance of the Forests features a unique combination of classically European dramatic elements and traditional Yoruba masquerade traditions which make the play resistant to both staging and traditional Western criticism. Since 1960, few attempts have been made to perform the play, due to its complexity and ambiguity. A Dance of the Forests presents an allegorical criticism of... Read A Dance of the Forests Summary

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A House for Mr. Biswas is a 1961 historical fiction novel by V. S. Naipaul. The story takes a postcolonial perspective of the life of a Hindu Indian man in British-owned and occupied Trinidad. Now regarded as one of Naipaul's most significant novels, A House for Mr. Biswas has won numerous awards and has been adapted as a musical, a radio drama, and a television show. Naipaul is also known for the works The Mimic... Read A House for Mr. Biswas Summary

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... Read An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Summary

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People is a 2019 adaptation of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s 2015 nonfiction book. Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese adapted the material for middle-grade audiences. The original publication received the American Book Award, and this version is a 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Young Adult Honor Book with recognition from the National Council for the Social Studies and the Children’s Book Council. This book tells the perspective of... Read An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People Summary

In “An Outpost of Progress,” Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), a Ukrainian-born Polish-British novelist and short story writer, presents a disturbing psychological case study centered on the struggle between good and evil in the hearts and souls of two white traders dispatched to a remote corner of Africa to oversee a trading station along the Congo River. The story probes how easily the heart can lose its moral and ethical bearings amid the oppressive emptiness of the... Read An Outpost Of Progress Summary

Published in 1970, Ama Ata Aidoo’s play Anowa tells the gripping story of its title character, who serves as an allegory for Africa itself. No stranger to Africa’s political and societal turmoil, Aidoo, a Ghanaian playwright, uses Anowa to interrogate the relationships between men and women, husbands and wives, women and motherhood, mothers and daughters, society and the individuals comprising it, and the future encroaching on ancient traditions. Aidoo's other well-known works include "No Sweetness... Read Anowa Summary

Une Tempête, or A Tempest, is Aimé Césaire’s modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The play was first published in French in 1969 by Éditions de Seuil (Paris). A Tempest was performed in France, as well as in different countries in Africa and the Middle East and in the West Indies. Richard Miller translated the play into English in 1985, and the play premiered in America in 1991, at the Ubu Repertory Theater in... Read A Tempest Summary

... Read Babel, or The Necessity of Violence Summary

Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks is a psychological study of colonialism. According to Fanon, the encounter between white European colonizers and black slaves and their descendants creates a unique social and psychological situation with a characteristic set of psychopathologies. Black Skin, White Masks analyzes these psychopathologies, traces their roots in the colonial encounter, and suggests how healing might become possible.Fanon works within a broadly existentialist and phenomenological framework, his project is psychoanalytic, and he... Read Black Skin, White Masks Summary

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Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, 4th Edition, by John Charles Chasteen was published in 2016. The first edition was printed in 2001. Chasteen works as an author, translator, and professor of Latin American history and culture. He teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Some of his other notable works are Americanos: The Struggle for Latin American Independence, National Rhythms, African Roots: The Deep History of... Read Born in Blood and Fire Summary

Cereus Blooms at Night (1996) is the first novel-length work of fiction written by Shani Mootoo, a Canadian author who was born in Ireland and grew up on the island nation of Trinidad. The novel was originally published in Canada and received critical acclaim there and internationally. It was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Giller Prize and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Mootoo is also a visual artist... Read Cereus Blooms At Night Summary

The Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was originally written in 1542, with a reprint in 1555. The chronicle follows Cabeza de Vaca’s memories of his survival after the expedition (led by Pánfilo de Narváez) failed and broke apart, and his subsequent peregrinations through the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. His chronicle stands as an important primary document of the age of the conquistadores. Of particular importance are Cabeza... Read Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition Summary

Clear Light of Day (1980) is Anita Desai’s sixth and—according to the author—most autobiographical novel. This novel was the first of three of Desai’s books to be nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize. Like other books in her corpus, such as Cry, the Peacock (1963) and Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975), it deals with gender struggles in a modernizing India. Set against the backdrop of Indian Independence and Partition, it explores the lives... Read Clear Light of Day Summary

... Read Confessions of the Fox Summary

Bapsi Sidhwa’s historical fiction novel Cracking India, first published in India in 1988 as Ice-Candy-Man, was translated into English under its current title in 1991. The 1947 partition of India that created the majority-Muslim country of Pakistan shapes the events of the novel. The novel begins in 1942, when India was an English colony. When Britain declared war on behalf of India during World War II, the move galvanized long-standing Indian independence movements until India... Read Cracking India Summary

Culture and Imperialism is a nonfiction book published in 1993 by the Palestinian American author and academic Edward Said. Originating from a series of lectures that Said delivered in 1985 and 1986, Culture and Imperialism is an expansion of the ideas set out in his groundbreaking earlier work, Orientalism. Considered one of the founders of the field of post-colonial studies, Said looks at how the formerly colonized margins influence the metropolitan centers, and vice versa... Read Culture and Imperialism Summary