"Francophone writers from North Africa and the Middle East often choose to write within a sacred context, sometimes engaging directly with Islamist rhetoric. Novelists like Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco), Assia Djebar (Algeria) and Amin Maalouf (Lebanon) revisit scripture as a way to convey nuances which they believe have been stamped out by monolithic religious world-views. For them, fiction offers a way to break away from limited exegetical horizons, but to remain within the faith. Others, though, would go further, moving away from all religious practice, not just the excessively political or violent. Tunisian writers Abdelwahab Meddeb and Fethi Benslama propose that all literature is of its very nature outside of religion, and that its proliferation will ultimately lead to a secular society. Qadiri explores this wide spectrum of approaches, not only by draw comparison with metropolitan French thought, but also to assess its potential impact at a time of radical change in the Islamic world. Sura Qadiri is a research associate in the French Department, University of Cambridge."

'Focusing on francophone writing from North Africa as it has developed since the 1980s, Writing After Postcolonialism explores the extent to which the notion of 'postcolonialism' is still resonant for literary writers a generation or more after independence, and examines the troubled status of literature in society and politics during this period. Whilst analysing the ways in which writers from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia have reacted to political unrest and social dissatisfaction, Jane Hiddleston offers a compelling reflection on literature's ability to interrogate the postcolonial nation as well as on its own uncertain role in the current context. The book sets out both to situate the recent generation of francophone writers in North Africa in relation to contemporary politics, to postcolonial theory, and evolving notions of 'world literature, and to probe the ways in which a new and highly sophisticated set of writers reflect on the very notion of 'the literary' during this period of transition.'

Autobiography, a fully-recognised genre within mainstream literature today, has evolved massively in the last few decades, particularly through colonial and postcolonial texts. By using autobiography as a means of expression, many postcolonial writers were able to describe their experiences in the face of the denial of personal expression for centuries. This book is centred around the recounting and analysis of such a phenomenon. Literary purists often reject autobiography as a fully-fledged literary genre, perceiving it rather as a mere life report or a descriptive diary. The colonial and postcolonial autobiographical texts analysed in this book refute such perceptions, and demonstrate a subtle combination of literary qualities and the recounting of real-life experiences. This book demonstrates that colonial and postcolonial autobiographical texts have established their ‘literarity’. The need for postcolonial authors to express themselves through the ‘I’ and the ‘me’, as subjects and not as objects, is the essence of this book, and confirms that self-affirmation through autobiographical writing is indeed an art form.

Pacifist Invasions is about what happens to the contemporary French lyric in the translingual Arabic context. Drawing on lyric theory, comparative poetics, and linguistics, it reveals three generic modes of translating Arabic poetics into French in works by Habib Tengour (Algeria), Edmond Jabès (Egypt), Salah Stétié (Lebanon), Abdelwahab Meddeb (Tunisia), and Ryoko Sekiguchi (Japan).

Examining images of literacy in African and West Indian novels, Neil ten Kortenaar looks at how postcolonial authors have thought about the act of writing itself. Writing arrived in many parts of Africa as part of colonization in the twentieth century, and with it a whole world of book-learning and paper-pushing; of school and bureaucracy; newspapers, textbooks and letters; candles, hurricane lamps and electricity; pens, paper, typewriters and printed type; and orthography developed for formerly oral languages. Writing only penetrated many layers of West Indian society in the same era. The range of writers is wide, and includes Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and V. S. Naipaul. The chapters rely on close reading of canonical novels, but discuss general themes and trends in African and Caribbean literature. Ten Kortenaar's sensitive and penetrating treatment of these themes makes this an important contribution to the growing field of postcolonial literary studies.

Examining the legacies of European imperialism, Steed Vernyl Davidson traces how the Bible reflects strong affinities with empire and provides on-going justifications for empire and concentrations of power. Writing/Reading the Bible in Postcolonial Perspective traces the evolution of the Bible from its production in empires of antiquity to its supportive role in the development of modern imperialism. The work also engages the ambiguities of the Bible as anti-imperial tool. Set within an examination of postcolonial studies as a revolutionary and revisionary discourse, this work presses for a more vigorous postcolonializing of the Bible in Biblical Studies. A description of the contemporary features and manifestation of empire forms the context within which further exploration of postcolonial biblical critical work can take place. Following an assessment of previous work in the field, the challenges of intersectional work with queer studies, terrorism studies, technology, and ecological studies are laid out as future tasks

The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing offers readers an insight into the scope and range of perspectives that one encounters in this field of writing. Encompassing a diverse range of texts and styles, performances and forms, postcolonial travel writing recounts journeys undertaken through places, cultures, and communities that are simultaneously living within, through, and after colonialism in its various guises. The Companion is organized into three parts. Part I, 'Departures', addresses key theoretical issues, topics, and themes. Part II, 'Performances', examines a range of conventional and emerging travel performances and styles in postcolonial travel writing. Part III, 'Peripheries' continues to shift the analysis of travel writing from the traditional focus on Eurocentric contexts. This Companion provides a comprehensive overview of developments in the field, appealing to students and teachers of travel writing and postcolonial studies.

This book examines the way in which France has failed to come to terms with the end of its empire, and is now haunted by the legacy of its colonial relationship with North Africa. It examines the form assumed by the ghosts of the past in fiction from a range of genres (travel writing, detective fiction, life writing, historical fiction, women's writing) produced within metropolitan France, and assesses whether moments of haunting may in fact open up possibilities for a renewed relational structure of cultural memory. By viewing metropolitan France through the prism of its relationship with its former colonies in North Africa, the book maps the complexities of contemporary France, demonstrating an emerging postcoloniality within France itself.

One of the most fascinating, rapidly developing, and difficult areas of literary and cultural studies today is postcolonialism. Focused on postcolonialism and designed especially for those studying postcolonial studies, Re-Shaping Culture and Identity in postcolonial Fiction: Salman Rushdie and Abdulrazak Gurnah introduces key subject areas of concern such as culture and identity in a clear accessible and organised fashion. It provides an overview of the development of postcolonialism as a discipline and takes a close look at its important authors, Salman Rushdie and Abdulrazak Gurnah, and their selected oeuvres, Fury, Midnight’s Children, By the Sea and Memory of Departure. With a palimpsestic analysis of culture and identity as crucial features of postcolonial texts, Re-Shaping Culture and Identity in postcolonial Fiction: Salman Rushdie and Abdulrazak Gurnah argues how postcolonialism functions in allowing the formation of a new perspective on the contemporary world. Besides, it offers an alternative perspective on their works, one that promotes the importance of the issue of postcolonial agency. This book will prove invaluable to anyone studying English Language and Literature, Migration Studies, and Cultural Studies. Contents Introduction: the borders of culture and identity A critical approach to culture and identity under the light of postcolonial theory The contributons of Abdulrazak Gurnah and Salman Rushdie to postcolonial literature Non- homes in postcolonial culture (Un)belonging postcolonial identity Conclusion: towards a new understanding of culture and identity Bibliography