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Colonial and Postcolonial literature - 2 - Coggle Diagram
Colonial and Postcolonial literature - 2
Australia ter
Voss by Patrick White (1957) relates Johann Ulrich Voss's journey inside Australian's interior in the 1840s. Laura Trevelyan, whom he met in Sidney, sustains him mentally through letters and the emotional bond they formed. Thomas Keneally's novels blend history, psychology and adventure as in The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith (1972).
The protagonists of David Malouf try to find their identity & live in harmony with nature. An Imaginary Life (1978) is the story of Ovid's exile in Tomis, where he befriends w/ a boy, i.e., an alien like him. Peter Carey's writings bring together reality & fiction, lies & truth, the mundane & the exotic = close to magic realism.
Oscar and Lucinda (1988) is a pastiche of a Victorian novel, explores racial, sexual and colonial issues. The fiction of Robert Drewe is based on real events and is close to 'new journalism', exploring sleaze, racism & criminality in contemporary Australia.
Tim Winton said: 'The place comes first. If the place isn't interesting to me then I can't feel it. I can't feel any people in it. I can't feel what the people are on about or likely to get up to.'
Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds (1977) is the saga of a poor family + David Ireland's novels are abt the transforma° of workers into prisoners by the industrial world.
New Zealand
The most significant writer was Katherine Mansfield, whose short stories resort to the stream of consciousness & symbolism to describe the immediacy of the moment. They are built ard intense moments of insight, revealing the frailty of things & fear of death. Ex. In a German Pension (1991) is a satire on class stereotypes, sexual relationships and spiritual emptiness.
Frank Sargeson's realist novels exposed the hypocritical immorality & the social csq of the Depression.
Janet Frame's mental problems are reflected in her stories which explore the human psyche, describing a 'mental anguish and unbalance' / witty euphonious prose. Aliena° & failure to communicate are the result of the Puritanism and conformism of society. Ex. Olws Do Cry (1957) chronicles the struggles of an impoverished family. = Investiga° of madness & hallucination.
Sylvia Ashton-Warner's Spinster (1958) + Albert Wendt's Leaves of the Banyan Tree (1978) + Hone Tuwhare + Patricia Grace + Alan Duff + Allen Curnow. James K. Baxter argued that poetry should address international themes. Fleur Adcock's oetry tackles the plight of women who might be forgotten.
South Africa
The beginnings (until 1945): Olive Shreiner's experience as a governess on a Karoo farm levels criticism at Victorian sexism + colonialism. William Plomer's Turbott Wolfe (1926) adresses interacial love. Thekiso Plaatje wrote abt land dispossession in South Africa in Native Life in South Africa (1916).
The years of Apartheid (1945-1990): Peter Abrahams wrote abt the hardships of rural people as in Mine Boy (1946). Herman Charles Bosman used unreliable narrators who reveal their prejudices. The novel Cry, The Beloved Country (1948) is the story of a black priest who leaves his Zulu village to look for his son, killed by a white activist.
E'skia Mphalele's Down Second Avenue (1959) describes the courage of women living in a squalid township. Nadine Gordimer's fiction is abt the influence of politics and people, portrays a divided country. July's People (1981) imagines a reversed order in which white family take refuge w/ their former black servant.
South Africa bis
Many black writers such as Alex La Guma, Bessie Head had to go into exile. Breyten Breytenbach and Andre Brink had their works banned in the 1970s.
The True Confession of an Albino Terrorist (1996) by Breytenbach is an account of his prison's years. A Dry White Season (1982) by Brink relates the quest of a friend of the narrator to find out the truth abt the death of a black activist.
1970s equated w/ the Back Consciousness mvt which celebrated black cultural values & miliatted vs. apartheid and state policies. Cf Oswald Joseph Mtshali + Sipho Sepamla + Mongane Serote + Athol Fugard.
J. M. Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature in 2003. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) takes place at an unspecified time in an unnamed country where an official is waiting for barbarians = allegory of how oppressive regimes engender fear.