Nodelman Article

7/27/2019 Nodelman Article

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I n t r o d u c t o r y N o t e s

Postcolonialism,

Children,

and

their

Literature

I cannot speak:for I am a chi ld .

J E R E M I A H

i

:6

V ^ _ H I L D R E N A RE T H Esubaltern and simply for me to speakof

them in the context o f

postcolonialism

is to raise a contradiction:

postcolonialism

and children. I fwe think of

postcolonialism

as a

phenomenon of late twentieth-century p o l i t i c a l , economic, and

cultural reali tya liberating from an outmoded paternalism

curtailing a people's freedom of expression and movement

then children are to a

great

extent exempt from the benefits of

suchpostness.It is

true

thatchildren's rights interest us, and that,

as Gareth Matthews points out, our society is movingslowlyin

the direction of assigning rights at an earlier and earlier age

( 8 0 ) . Havingremarked this, Ihastento addthatchildren remain

the most colonializedpersons on the globe. This is apparent

even in the li terature we label for them. As Jacqueline Rose

pointed out w e l lover adecadeago in a comment o n J . M . Barrie's

The Little

White

Bird,the literature publ ished for child ren is a way

o f colonising (or wrecking) the c h i l d 27) . Perry Nodelman

arguessomething similarwhen he applies Edward Said's notions

o f Orientalism to the study o f children and their literature, and

I suspect it is this co lonizing tendency of both the literature for

children

and the adult

criticism

o f

that

literature

that

Peter Hunt

opposes

when he calls for a childist reading of children's

literature ( 1 9 2 - 9 4 ) . So the first thing to be clear on is just how

deeply colonizing are the activities of wri ting for chil dren and

commenting on children's books.

ARIEL:

AReviewof

International

English

Literature, 2 8 : 1 ,January1997


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8

R O D E R I C K M C G I L L I S , M E E N A K H O R A N A

These activities are so

colonizing that

we might say, as

Nodelmandoes,

that

none o fus can escape the roleo f colonizer.

Speaking

of his own

imperial

tendencies, Nod el ma n admits:

i n order to combat colonialism,I am recommending a benevo

lently

helpful colonizing attitude towards children ( 3 4 ) .If we

conclude with Nodelman and Rose that both the writing about

children'sliterature and the writingof it are colonialist, then we

might

have to saythatno such thing as a postcolonia l children's

literature or apostcolonialcriticismof it exists.I fwe assume

that

the term postcolonial designates a time after imperial powers

have departed (in one way or another), and

that

the postcolonial

voice

is a voice speaking its own authority and identity in c o n f i

dence ofthatauthority and identity, then chi ld renonlyexpress a

postcolonial voice after they have ceased to be children.Adults

speak for and construct versionso f children.Some evidence that

this situation is not permanent or given as part o fnatureexists in

thejuvenilia o f

certain

writers, in works published by quite young

authors such as S. E.

Hinton,

who published

The Outsiders

when

she was 16,or Gor don

Korman

who published his first novel at

1 4 , and in a number of Web sites which feature the work and

opinions of young people. O n the whole, however, adults con

tinue to colonize young readers.

Children,

then, may not be in the position of postcolonial

subjects, speaking for themselves and taking responsibility for

their own actions. The literature

which

they read may also partic

ipate in a

colonizing

enterprise i f we assume

that

it

sets

out to

draw itsreadersinto theworldas adults see it and construct it. O n

the other hand, the postcolonialcriticis not a quixote whosets

out to de-colonize ch ildren; rather she or he tries to clarify how

children's

literature and the criticism of

that

literature manifest

the powerful force ofEurocentricbiases and in doing so tries to

dismantle

that

powerful force.

A n d yet the contradict ion I ment ioned earlier takes another

twist:

childr en and their literature are always postcolonial , if by

postcolonial we mean thatwhich stands outside and in opposi

tion to tradition and power.Althoughchildren and their litera

tureare notinevitablyoutside aEurocentric

v s on

of things, they

do represent a challenge to the traditionso f mainstream culture.


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I N T R O D U C T O R Y

N O T E S

Simply

to acknowledge children and their literature in ajournai

such as

ARIEL

is a postcolonial act; it is a

gesture

toward recon-

ceiving

the canon and toward redefining what academic and

professional criticism

does

and says. In this

sense,

children's

literature benefits from the expanded field of inquirythatis an

aspect

of cultural studies. If we are w i l l i n g to take certain

genre

films or

certain forms of graphic art such as the comic book

seriously,

then we can

rest f a i r l y

easy taking books for children

seriously.

I cannot, however, get away from contradict ion: when

we take children's books seriously as an object of study, we

initiate the verycolonizingo f the f i e l dthat that field had seemed

to resist. In short, the notion of

postcolonialism

in relation to

children's books requires some organization. What do we mean

by postcolonialism in relation to chi ldren's literature?

Here's a vexed question. As

others

have noted, postcolonial

now

serves to mean many things to many people. Postcolonial

ism is a site of debate as much as it is anything else. Stephen

Slemon,in an earlier number

o f

ARIEL

notesthat

the attributes

o f

postcolonialism

have become so

widely

contested in contem

porary usage, its

strategies

and sites so structurally dispersed, as

to render the term next to useless as a precise marker of

intellec

tual

content,

social

constituency, or

political

commitment

( 8 ) .

More recently, Shaobo Xie

argues

that no such a thing as an

'uncontamina ted' or 'indigenous' postcolonial theory exists

( 7 ) . What is of central importance Xi e finds in

Simon

During,

who writes: post-colonialism is regarded as the need, in nations

or groupswhich have been victims ofimperial ism, to achieve an

identity

uncontaminated by universalist or Eurocentric concepts

and images

( 1 2 5 ;

or Xie7 ) .Xie, speaking in a general

sense,

remarks that postcolonialism

represents

an urgent need and

determination to dismantle imperia l structures in the realm of

culture

( 1 5 ) .

The tension

here

resides in the inabilityofthese

descriptions

o fpostcolonialism

to account for children who are a

group

w e l l

practised incolonial attitudes, and who hope to grow

out of their

colonial

positions through accommodation to their

colonial

elders. Children are always marked by (contaminated

by)

the

attitudes

of an older generation. As my epigraph

i n d i

cates,

especially when the

reader

views the entire

passage


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10


verses6-gthis older generation might encourage children to

speak,but it

does

so expecting them tospeakits words, topasson

its wisdom, to

perpetuate

its

v s on

of the

world.

What

does

speak to the subject of children' s literature i n the

passages from During and Xi e that I quote, is the notion of

cultural multiplicity. Children may not speak their own litera

ture,

but we can

assure

that the literature they read comes to

them in the fullness of the cultural situation of the late twentieth

century. We can, for example, acknowledge a novel such as

Shyam

Selvadurai's Fun n y Boy ( 1 9 9 4 ) , set in Sri Lanka, as a

welcome contribution to [Canadian] literature (the quotation

derives from the

Globe and

M a i l andappearson the back cover of

Selvadurai's novel) . A similar example is Al thea Trotman's

How

the East Po n d Got its Flow ers ( g g i ) , a Canadian picture book for

children, set in Antigua during the t ime of slavery. In other

words, we can introduce our children to works of literature that

represent

the

range

of cultural experiences and histories that

make up the national and international communities

that

touch

al lof us. This is one aspectof postcolonial studies: breaking the

hold

of the great traditions

that

have dominated the study of

English

literatures since the rise of

English

studies during the

heyday o f B r i t i s h imperialism.We have arrived at a consciousness

that,as Charles Larsonargues, when we try to force the concept

o f universality on someone who is not Western . . . we are

implying that our own culture should be the standard ofmeas

urement

( 6 4 ) .

Heather Scutter's essay in this issue, Hunt ing for History:

Children's

Literature Outside, Over There, and

Down

Under,

points out how persistent is the tendency to see even the litera

turesof such postcolonial countries as Canada and Austral ia in

terms

o fWestern European and

American

traditions. Indigenous

voices and diasporic voices continue tospeakfrom the periphery

o fwhat Zohar Shavit refers to as the literary polysystem. To see

just how inveterate is this focus on canonical Western texts, you

might glance at the most recenthistory of chi ldren's books, John

Goldthwaite's The

N a t u r a l History

of

M ake- B eli eve:

A

Guide

to the

Principal

W o r k s

of Britain, E u r o p e , and A meri ca ( i g g 6 ) .

The essays

i n this issue of

ARIEL

are a

gesture

towards

greater

inclusivity.


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I N T R O D U C T O R Y N O T E S

11

Here

you w i l l read about works from Canada,Australia, South

A f r i c a ,

Nigeria,

Sri

Lanka,

and the United States. I fwe locate the

term postcolonial in the per iod of national independence

movements arisingwith greater urgency after

W o r ld

War II and

the Korean War than they did prior to

these

wars, then at least

one of the texts featured in

these

pages w i l l appear anomalous:

Burnett's T he

Secret

Garden, considered inM i c h a e lCadden's arti

cle . Here is a decidedly colonial book, but one we need to

examinefrom a postcolonial perspective. Just asSaidhas taught

us to read early texts by the

likes

of Jane Austen or Charles

Dickens

for their evocations of a

colonial

mind-set, so Cadden

teaches us to look for a similar mind-set in Burnett . John Bal l

does the same for our understanding of Sendak's Where the Wild

Things Are,

also noted as an imperialist text byM i c h a e lJoseph

i n his essay on Achebe, and June Cummins does something

similar

in her

treatment

of the Curious George books.

O u r current awareness o fcultural diversity

within

political and

economic

borders goes some way to readjusting the manner in

whichwe read such

familiar

texts as The

Secret

Garden or Where the

Wild Things Areor the books about

Curious

George. I want briefly

to give another example of how our reading of tradi tional (can

onical) texts can grow, by drawing on the work of one of my

students.

L y n n

Braithwaite, a student in a children's literature

class I teach this year, recently gave a presentation on E. B.

W/hite's Ch arlotte's Web.She began this way:

I n Charlotte s Web the reader meets many animal groups on the

Zuckermanfarm; the animals face other animals very different from

themselves. Each animal comes to recognize and accept the other

animals' cultures. The animals accept one another because they

acknowledge

the others' perspective, habits, feelings. In short, they

accept the culture

o f

the otheranimals,and they

attempt

to under

stand creatures different from themselves.

Because childrenidentify

with

animals, thisk in d o fliterature (i.e.,

animal

fantasy) can show

that

the different cultures in the animal's

worldare similarto the different cultures in the humans' world.In

education today, children are faced

with

classrooms fu l l of

children

from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Through

literature, we can introduce the concept of cultural diversity, and

facilitate an understanding and acceptance of this diversity.


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12

R O D E R I C K M C G I L L I S ,

M E E N A

K H O R A N A

Iquote at some length to indicate how thisstudent'sfocus on

Charlotte's Webderives from the perspective of ou r cultural mo

ment. She is, in effect, using a postcolonial perspective to read

what I think is a deeply colonialist book. I suspect that had I

turned my attention to the cultural impl icat ions of Charlotte's

Webefore hearing

Lynn's

presentation, and certainly before the

advent o f

postcolonial

studies, I

would

have argued

that

the farm

with its various animals served as an allegoric reminder o f Amer

ica's

great mel ting pot. My argument would have attached this

book

to the traditions o fAmerican popul ism and agrarianism; it

presentsan i d y l l i cvision

o f

just howAmerica brings a disparate

group of people together and forges a homogeneous cul ture.

L y n n ,however,

sees

another model at work in

Ch arlotte's Web,

the

model

of

multiculturalism.

If the book ismulticultural, this does

not necessarily mean it is

postcolonial .

ButLynn'sreading isitself

a sign of a kind of reading I think we can c a l l postcolonial

because it partakes of the ideological urge to read texts within

o u r

cultural moment and to argue for the rights of

diversity

and

f o r

what CharlesTaylor

calls

a regime ofreciprocalrecognition

among equals

( 5 0 ) .

O n e aspect of

postcolonialism,

then, identifies a revisionar}'

reading of canonical texts

that

articulates how

these

texts

construct worlds. Graeme Harper, Clare Bradford, and Robyn

M c C a l l u m

take up this subject in their essays in the pages

that

follow. The books we read inevitably construct versions of the

world

and its various peoples, and we need to understand just

ho w

theseconstructions influence our notions of what we have

become accustomed to refer to as the other. Difference, diver

sity,othernessthese are watchwords when we come to examine

any world construction. Canonical textsworks such as The

Secret G a r d e n or Where

th e Wild T h i n g s Are

or Ch a rl o t te ' s Webtend

not to foreground issues of difference; rather the notions of

difference remain a backdrop hardly impinging on our con

sciousness. We tend to take difference and the

privileging o f

one

group over another as natural.Postcolonialreading uncovers the

constructedness of cultural identity.

More recent and directly postcolonial texts br ing difference

into

the foreground, and by doing so they remind us just how


7/14


13

unnatural the

division o f

human beings into hierarchical groups

is . Works such as Selvadurai's Funny Boy or Himani Bannerji's

Coloured Pictures

confront us

with

racial diversity and the agony

that

can accompany decolonization. Speaking of her

teachers

i n

a Toronto (Canada) school, thirteen-year-old Sujata, in

Bannerji's Coloured Pictures,

remarks to a friend: They don' t hate

us or anything, they think we are different from

others

but don 't

much

want to know whatthatmeans (2 4 )

. A s

Raj Rao's article in

this issue points out, Selvadurai illustrates just how the colonial

mentalitythatoften surfaces as racism works its way into gender

relations, both heterosexual and homosexual . Part of the post-

colonial

enterprise is a liberat ion from the diminishing place

ment of people according to their racial origins, their religious

beliefs,

their gender, or their sexual preference. The relation

ship of an individual to a group marks the beginning of the

colonialprocess, as the novels

o f

Emecheta indicate. Rose Mezu 's

schizoanalytic analysis of two of Emecheta's novels points up

this continuing tension between

individual

desire and group

cohesion.

M y

mention of

fiction

by Emecheta, Selvadurai, and Bannerjii

raises another problem: the definit ion of children 's literature.

Clearly,the publ ishing and marketing of the books by Emecheta

and Selvadurai differ from the publ ishing and marketing of

Bannerji's Coloured Pictures. A n d a glance through the table of

contents to this issue

w i l l

indicate

that

the children's literature

examined in

these

various articles comprises books clearly

tar

geted at a very young readership, at books for the

middle

years,

and at books accessible to adolescents. The most

difficult

area is

the last. Publishers now

explicitly

label certain books as young

adult, and we have books placed in such sections in book stores.

B u t books such as Funny Boyor The Bride Priceare not marked off

f o r

such a specialized readership; some

w i l l

argue

that

they are

not what we mean when we refer to children 's literature. A n d

yet they not only concern chi ldhood and adolescence, they are

also important for youngreaders.Th ei r content (their diegesis,

i f

yo u w i l l )

offers important experience for young readers. They

deal with difficult issues both relevant and accessible to young

readers; I refer to such themes as social, national, and sexual


8/14

14


identity. In short, a novel such asFunny Boydeals with growing up,

and the problems and anxietiesattendantupon growing up that

this book

presents

are not i n any way inaccessible to an adoles

cent

readership.

The question as to what makes a work of literature suitable for

children remains vexed. A n d we continue the vexation in our

choice of creative work for this issue.

Clearly,

a poem such as

Shirley

G e o k - L i n

L i m ' s

Presumed

G u i l t y ,

participates in the

textual web of folklore and fairytale, but it

does

so in the re

visionar)'and haunt ing manner of Sexton's Transformations. And

L i m ' s

The

Rebel

speaksfrom the point

o fview o f

an adolescent

(like

M . Nourbese

Philip's

The Bearded Queen , an extract

from her Young

A d u l t

novel-in-progress), but it seeks an audi

ence that crosses generations. Poems such as R i e n z i Crusz's

Distant R a i n , Lynne Fairbridge's I D o No t See Them Here,

Claire Harris's Tower Power, Richard Harrison's speaking of

voice (identity[politics]), and Richard Stevenson's Homo Sa

piens Strut

speak

across age lines, but are clearly not inaccess

ible

to youngreaders.Some ofthese poems have strong

political

voices;we mightarguethat

political

work offers young

readers

an

important perspective from which to view the world into which

they are growing. In other pieces, we move into experiences that

depend upon age and maturity; but who is to say young

readers

ought not read

o f

an olderperson'scoming into realization. The

experience of understanding knows no age

l i m i t .

What many of

the

speakers

of

these

poems confront is identity.

Identity is at the

heart

o f thematter.

Just

whatdoesthis familiar

and over-worked wordmean?Is identity some Keatsian afflatus

derived from an act of anti-self-consciousness? D o huma n beings

have an identity in common? Does identity take

shape

from

social, cultural, and

political

realities? Does identity derive

from

b lood ties to specific groups? Can any identity

f o l l o w

from

an act of liberat ion untying the individualfrom ideological

forces which

seek

to corner him or her at every turn? Can such a

thing as a postcolonial condit ion exist? The

essays

in this issue

o f ARIEL seek

to investigate such questions. They provide in

triguing forays into relatively new territory, but of course they do

not provide definitive answers. The

best

they can hope to do for


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15

us isunblind o u r ears to the

globalreality

i nwhich thatwhich we

have

taken f o r

granted

f o r s o longthe Eurocentric v s on o f

thingscan

n o

longer smugly

assume

primacy

o f

value

in the

human community. Postcolonialism is a

manifestation

o f the

desire f o r t he acceptance a n d understanding o f otherness, a n d

as such it has a

l o g i c a l

affinity

with

childrenw h o

seem

to

strive

f o r

recognition. T h e contradiction

lies

i n t he

desire

o f

children

to

j o i n the group that holds

authority

over them. T h e desire is

always a n d ever to become the other.

I wish to acknowledge m y co-editor

Meena Khorana

whose

editorial

acumen, timely reports, a n d emotional support were

invaluable to my work o n this issue. Iwish

also

to thank V i c t o r J .

Ramraj

f o r h i s

patience;

a n d I ought to

point

o u t

that although

this

issue

has

co-editors,

the

editor,

asalways,does the lion'sshare

o f t h e

work.

R O D E R I C K

M C G I L L I S

University of

Calgary

WORKS

C I T E D

B a n n e r j i ,

H i m a n i .

Coloured Pictures . T o r o n t o : S i s te r V i s i o n , 1 9 9 1 .

B r a i t h w a i t e , L y n n . C h a r l o t t e 's W e b a n d M u l t i c u l t u r a l i s m . U n p u b l i s h e d P a p e r .

D u r i n g ,

S i m o n . P o s t m o d e r n i s m o r P o s t - C o l o n i a l i s m T o d a y . The Post-Colonia l

Studies

Reader. E d . B i l l A s h c r o f t , G a r e t h G r i f f i t h s , a n d H e l e n

T i f f i n .

L o n d o n : R o u t -

l edge , 1 9 9 5 . 125-29.

G o l d t h w a i t e . J o h n . The Natural History of M ake-Bel ieve: A Guide to the Principal Works of

Britain, E u ro pe , a n d A m e ri c a . N e w Y o r k : O x f o r d U P , 1 9 9 6 .

H u n t ,

P e t e r . Crit ic ism, Theory Children 's L iterature. O x f o r d : B a s i l B l a c k w e l l , 1 9 9 1 .

L a r s o n , C h a r l e s . H e r o i c E t h n o c e n t r i s m : T h e I d e a o f U n i v e r s a l i t y i n L i t e r a t u r e .

A s h c r o f t , G r i f f i t h s , a n d

T i f f i n .

6 2 - 6 5 .

M a t t h e w s , G a r e t h . T h e P h i l o so ph y o f C h i l d h o o d . C a m b r i d g e , M A : H a r v a r d U P , 1 9 9 4 .

N o d e l m a n , P e r r y . T h e O t h e r : O r i e n t a l i s m , C o l o n i a l i s m , a n d C h i l d r e n ' s L i t e r a t u r e .

C h L A

hi rterly

1 7 ( i g g 2 ) : 2 9 - 3 5 .

R o s e , J a c q u e l i n e . T h e Case o f Peter Pan or the Imposs ib i l i ty o f Chi ldren 's Fict ion . L o n d o n :

M a c m i l l a n ,

1 9 8 4 .

S h a v i t , Z o h a r . Poetics of Chi ldren 's L iteratu re. A t h e n s , G A : U o f G e o r g i a P , i g 8 6 .

S l e m o n , S t e p h e n . I n t r o d u c t o r y N o t e s : P o s t c o l o n i a l i s m a n d i ts D i s c o n t e n t s . A R I E L

2 6 - 1

1995) :

7 - n -

T a y l o r , C h a r l e s . M ult icul tural ism: Exam ining the Pol i t ics o f R ecognit ion . E d . A m y

G u t m a n . P r i n c e t o n , N J : P r i n c e t o n U P , 1 9 9 4 .

T r o t m a n , A l t h e a . H o w t h eEast

Pond

Got i ts Flow ers . I l l u s . Sasso. T o r o n t o : S i s t er V i s i o n ,

1 9 9

1

-

X i e , S h a o b o . R e t h i n k i n g t h e P r o b l e m o f P o s t c o l o n i a l i s m . N e w L i t e ra ry H i s t o ry 2 8

1997) :

7 - 1 9 -


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16

R O D E R I C K M C G I L L I S M E E N A K H O R A N A

PostcolonialorPostindependence

P O S T C O L O N I A L ?Why not postindependence? asked

Prabhat K . Singh, a colleague in India, when I told h imabout this

special issue of A R I E L on postcolonial perspectives on

C h i l

dren's and Young A d u l t literature. He argues that the term

postcolonlal places emphasis on the p o l i t i c a l economic, social,

and cul tural subjugation of a nation's spirit of nationalism,

freedom, and heroic struggle against foreign oppression. Rod

M c G i l l i s in his editorial

note

looks at the relationship between

postcolonialism

and children's literature and children's litera

ture

in postcolonial societies. I want to

address

briefly some

aspects

of the postcolonial, this contentious term that Singh

and many

others

in postcolonial societies find troubling.

Singh's comments makes me reflect on myrecenteditorial for

the postcolonial issue of

B o o k b i r d ,

in which I

trace

my

colonial

heritagemy British-styleschooling, the confl ict between West

ern and Indian values, the clash between school and home. Had

the term postcolonial, which leads to colonialconstructs and

imperial nostalgia, according to Singh, prompted me to focus

o n my experiences atAuckland House School , in Simla? W o u l d

the term postindependence have

made

me stress my nation

alistic

side, my fierce pride in being the first member

o f m y

family

to be born in a free Ind iaone of Rushdie's midnight's

c h i l

dren ? W o u l d I then have focused on my enjoyment as a c h i l d

i n reading the biographies of freedom fighters

l i k e

the

Rani

o f Jhansi, Bhagat S i n g Gandhiji, Subhash Chandra Bose, and

Jawaharlal Nehru? This

aspect

of my upbringing infused in me

no confusion o fvalues, no contradiction o f

loyalties

and motives;

rather,

it was an empowering moment to grow up in the new

India.The

message

of our leaders wasthat the young (women in

particular) needed to throw off the shackles of the

past,

to

become educated and forward-looking, to seize the untold op

portunities in this new reality.

However,

my ambivalence should not be mistaken for inse

curity

or disharmony. What I f i n d l i v e l y about postcolonial dis-


11/14


7

course (whether of children's or adult literature) is that it is

no longer a confrontation between colonialversus nationalistic.

A

blur ri ng of boundaries is occurr ing as writers and scholars

both Western and non-Westernexplore the contradictions

and complexities of the postcolonial global situation. This has

come about through changes in globalpolitics,economy,

trade,

cultural

exchange, and immigration policies.

Postcolonial literature covers a vast canvas and is essentially

idealistic

in

nature

as itattempts to right the wrongs of the past.

I f colonial literature was characterized by imperial propagation

o f the ideology of supremacy over the colonized races, post-

colonial

literature re-evaluates

colonialism

for its hypocrisy and

self-serving

racist attitudes. If colonial literature perpetuated

stereotypes o f

backwardness, of barbaric and

uncivilized

peoples

through narrative, characterization, and themes, postcolonial

discourse counters this by recognizing achievements in the arts

and sciences and contributions to technology and culture. It is

the story of the other.

Postcolonial

literature speaks in mul tiple

voices;

it gives agency to and embraces all hitherto marginal ized

segments

of the popula ti onchildren , women, untouchables,

and ethnic and racial minorit ies.

Decolonizationhas led also to forms of liberation ofchildren,

not least of whom are the chi ld ren ofcolonial officials, mission

aries, andtraderswho were colonized through their upbringing,

education, and leisure reading. As Argentinean author

Graciela

Montes

states,

adults colonize ch il dren by granting the gift of

language to them: words name things and, when they name,

they inevitably carry with them a huge cultural load, a way of

looking at, of feeling, and of dealing with the world

22).

Whether Portuguese, B r i t i s h French, or Spanish,colonial c h i l

dren were exploi ted as histor ical objects to perpetuate their

empires.

C o l o n i a l

literature dictated how they should perceive

the land of their bir th and chi ldhood . Yet the words, the charac

ters,

and situations inthesestereotypical, derogatory books often

contradicted the experiences that sur rounded them. As adults,

many ofthesecolonial ch il dren have written about their lives in

the colonies, rejecting the dissociation and rootlessness o f their

colonial l i f e by l i n k i n g their emotional and psychological w e l l-


12/14

18


being with their r i c h experiences o f indigenous cultures. Iris

MacEarlane, Rumer Godden, Manuela Gerqueira, and Alberto

O l i v e i r a

Pinto, to

name

a few, have tried to relive their isolation,

redefine race relations, and integrate their dual identities. To

Godden, who grew up in Bengal, the

B r i t i s h viere

a society of

exiles ; they were rootless as cut flowers (qtd. in M a c m i l l a n

4 4 ) . As EdwardSaid

states

in Culture andI m p e r ia lis m , we are just

becoming aware of how oddly hybrid historical and cultural

experiences are, o fhow theypartake o fmany often contradictory

experiences and domains, cross national boundaries, defy the

police action of simple dogma and loud patriotism

15).

Critics level charges of reverse e l i t i s m and exclusion against

postcolonial discourse. Russell Jacoby, for instance, while ap

plaudingit for opening up new

areas

of study beyond traditional

Western literature, censurespostcolonial theorists for being con

tradictory, obscure, undefined, confused, and e l i t i s t . He raises

the question of whether Western wri ting about postcolonial/

postindependence societies should be construed as the appro

priation of the voice of the other and as a form of domina

tion. Thisattitude has led to debates concerning such works as

Susanne Fisher Staples's

S h a b a n u .

IsStaples, an Amer ican ,ste

reotyping Pakistani culture by focusing on one small group, the

camel herders

of the Cholistan

desert?

Can she write authen

tically o f

Pakistani

culture? Isshe not indulging in cul tural appro

priation.

Other issues emerge in this debate: Who speaks for

whom? Can Western writers/ theorists

speak

for non-Western

subjects? Whose voice is legitimate? Are such questions valid?

Manyfeelthatpostcolonial scholars have marginal ized certain

groups by not inc luding them in the discourse. In

1995,

at

the M i d - A t l a n t i c Writers Associat ion Conference in Bal timore,

one participant observed that postcolonial works routinely ex

clude diaspora Africans and the experience of slavery from their

studies. Are postcolonial studies strictly amatterof history, or is it

a modern all-embracing concept

that

brings all marginalized

groups to the centre of the

debate?

The experiences of the

enslaved and the distortions and omissions of their history have

parallels in postcoloniality. For instance,

James

Berry's A j e e m a h

a n dHisS o r t fictionalize the thoughtsand feelings of two enslaved


13/14

I N T R O D U C T O R Y

N O T E S

9

Africans uproo ted from their home in Ghana. Th e postco lonial

aspects

of subalternity can be found in their stories: their inter

nalized

rebellion, their

sense

of

outrage

at being deni ed free

dom, and their helplessness i n the face of crushingly super ior

often mil ita ryforces. Despite

these

dehumaniz ing conditions,

they main ta ined their pride and dignity and safeguard them

selves against the demoralizing impact of slavery by retaining

something of their former lives.

Widespread immigrat ion from the former colonies to Western

countries (to

find

bettereconomic opportunities, to flee political

oppression in some instances, and to seek freedom from the

constraints o f tradi tional cultures) has created what cou ld be

seen as another form of postcolonial literature, a literature of

exile

characterized by conflic t between Western and tradi tional

values, by cultural marginalization, by racial conflicts, by pres

sures

to assimilate or integrate. Lesley Beake's

C a g e f u l

of B u t -

te rf l i e s (1 9 8 9 )

Ramabai

Espinet's

TheP r i n c e s s ofS p a d i n a ;

T a l e

of

T o r o n t o ( 1 9 9 2 ) ,

Rosa Guy's

The

F r i e n d s

1973) ,

M .

Nourbese

Philip's Ha r r i e t s

D a u g h t e r ( 1 9 8 8 ) ,

Indi Rana's

The R o l l e r

B i r d

of

R a m p u r

( 1 9 9 3 ) , Nazneen Sadiq's C a m e l s

Can M a k e You H o m e s i c k

(

1 9 8 5 )

B i p s i Sidhwa's n A m e r i c a n

B r a t (1 9 9 3 )

and Rukshana

Smith's Su mi n tra

S t o r y

1982)works on which we would have

liked to receive articlesare al l powerful narratives of ch il dren

and adolescents trying to negotiate between their former and

adopted societies.

Perhaps Prahbat K. Singh is right in stating

that

this preoc

cupationwith a hybr id identi ty and the crisis of a split identi ty is

relevant only to those

l i v i n g

abroad in adopted Western homes

and not to those in the newly independent nat ion , who are

developing nationa l indentit ies , free of the ambivalences of the

colonial period. They can do this despite the inescapable West

ern impact on their lives for they have integrated the English

language,

Hollywood films,

Western medicine and technology,

clothing and music, in their overarching postindependence

culture.

Thisspecial issue is not as representative o fwhat is happening

creatively, critically, and theoreticaly in postcolonial children's

and young adult literature as we woul d have likedit to be. But as


14/14

2 0

R O D E R I C K

M C G I L L I S , M E E N A K H O R A N A

V i c t o r J . Ramraj, th e editor o f A R I E L (whose

editorial contribu

tion to

this

issue w as

indispensable

a n d very much appreciated),

assures u s i t i s d i f f i c u l t with ajournai

operating

o n deadlines to

wait

f or a l l t h e promised submissions; a

published

book c a n b u t

n o t ajournai.

What

w e have included

here,

however, does

pro

vide

a n interim

report

o n

some currentareas

o f a n d approaches

t o t h e f i e l d . Iwould l i k e t o

thank

R o d M c G i l l i s withwhom it as a

pleasure to work a n d w h o I must acknowlege, d i d much o f t h e

work o n

this

issue.

M E E N A

K H O R A N A

M o r g a n

State

Univ e rs it y

WORKS

C I T E D

B e a k e , L e s l e y . A Cageful o f Bu t t e r f li e s . C a p e T o w n : M a s k e w M i l l e r L o n g m a n , 1 9 8 9 .

B e r r y , J a m e s . jeemah a n d H i s S o n . N e w Y o r k : P e r l m a n , 1 9 9 1 .

E s p i n e t , R a m a b a i . T h e P r i n ce s s o f S p a d i n o : A

Tale

o f T o r o n t o . T o r o n t o : S i s t e r

V i s i o n ,

9 9

2

-

G u y , R o s a . T h e F r i e n d s . N e w Y o r k : H o l t 1 9 7 3 .

K h o r a n a ,

M e e n a G " T o t h e R e a d e r . " B o o k b i r d 3 4 . 4 1996) : 2 - 3 .

M a c m i l l a n , M a r g a r e t O l w e n . Women o f t h e R a j . L o n d o n : T h a m e s a n d H u d s o n , 1 9 9 8 .

M o n t e s , G r a c i d a . " W i l d L a n g u a g e a n d O f f i c i a l L a n g u a g e . " E l C o r r a l d e l a I n f a c ia [ A

P e n F o r C h i l d h o o d ] . T r a n s . S u s a n n a G u l l c o G r o i s m a n . B u e n o s A i r e s : L i b r o s d e l

Q u i r q u i n c h o ,

1 9 9 0 . 21-26.

R a n a ,

I n d i .

7 R o l le r B i r d s o f R a m p u r . N e w Y o r k : F a w c e t t J u n i p e r , 1 9 9 3 .

P h i l i p ,

M . N o u r b e s e . H a r r i e t s D a u g h t e r . T o r o n t o : W o m e n ' s P r e s s , 1 9 8 8 .

J a c o b y , R u s s e l l . " M a r g i n a l R e t u r n s : T h e T r o u b l e w i t h P o s t c o l o n i a l T h e o r y . " L i n g u a

Fr a n ca S e p t - O c t . 1 9 9 5 : 3 0 - 3 7 .

S a d i q , N a z n e e n . Camels C a n M a k e Y o u H o m e s i ck . M u s . M a r y C s e r e p y . T o r o n t o :

L o r i m e r , 1 9 8 5 .

S a i d , E d w a r d . C u l t u r e a n d I m p e r i a l i sm . N e w Y o r k : P a n t h e o n , 1 9 7 0 .

S i d h w a , B a p s i . A n A m e r i ca n B r a t . M i n n e a p o l i s : M i l k w e e d E d i t i o n s , 1 9 9 3 .

S m i t h , R u k s h a n a . S u m i t r a s S t o r y . N e w Y o r k : C o w a r d M c C a n n , 1 9 8 2 .

S t a p l e s , S u z a n n e F i s h e r . S h a b a n u . N e w Y o r k : K n o p f , 1 9 8 9 .

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