The complete sixth series of the BBC comedy sketch show hosted by Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, which in its heyday was as much of a British institution as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Each programme begins and ends with the pair seated behind a desk reading quick-fire 'news' reports. In between, 'in a packed programme tonight...', there are sketches, drama serials, musical routines and a rambling monologue from Ronnie Corbett, before the pair finally sign off with their famous catchphrase: 'It's goodnight from me.' 'And it's goodnight from him.' 'Goodnight'.
The present collection of essays endeavours to furnish informed responses to central questions posed by the editors: Is the fact that the marvellous coexists with the factual and never resolves itself into the supernatural an indication that the whole literary project of 'magical realism' is an instrumental and representational form which can be regarded as particularly suitable for reconciling dichotomies and oppositions otherwise experienced as intolerable? Was 'magical realism' an explosive process in cultural dynamics, taking place at intersections of heterogeneous cultures most favourable to the efflorescence of this type of literature? The authors of the various essays - on Patrick White and David Malouf, Ben Okri, Syl Cheney-Coker, Robert Kroetsch, Gwendolyn MacEwan, Jack Hodgins, Salman Rushdie, Janet Frame, Wilson Harris and others - provide a dynamic focus on the reality at stake beneath the surface representations of 'magical realism' in post-colonial literatures.
The intention of this second volume of ASNEL Papers is to counter orthodox post-colonial emphases on alterity, subversion, and counter-discourse with another set of concepts: fusion, syncretism, hybridity, creolisation, cross-fertilisation, cross-cultural identity, diaspora. Topics covered include: gender and identity; syncretic aesthetics in Nigerian and South African performing arts; hyphenated identities in diasporic fiction; reversals of colonial mimicry in Ugandan fiction; cultural reflexivity in the Victorian juvenile novel; the persistence of colonial traits in Zimbabwean war fiction; syncretic strategies of resistance in African prison memoirs; indigene life-histories and intercultural authorship; neo-essentialism in post-colonial critiques of the Rushdie Affair; US multiculturalism and political praxis; creolisation in Surinam; cultural complexities in the Caribbean epic; literary representations of the Haitian Revolution. Authors treated within broader frameworks include Margaret Atwood, R.M. Ballantyne, Marie-Claire Blais. Alejo Carpentier, Roch Carrier, Aimé Césaire, Michelle Cliff, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Edouard Glissant, Andrew Hacker, Eddy L. Harris, Wilson Harris, Bessie Head, C.L.R. James, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jayanta Mahapatra, Paule Marshall, A.K. Mehrotra, Timothy Mo, Bharati Mukherjee, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Akiki Nyabongo, Eugene O'Neill, Molefe Pheto, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, Ted Trindell, and Derek Walcott. There are also poems by David Woods and Afua Cooper.
Commonwealth Literature Today Stands For Literature(S) In English Written In The Commonwealth Countries Outside The Anglo-American Tradition. What Is Common Between The Diverse Members Of The Commonwealth In Spite Of Their Different Calendars Of Independence And Ethnological, Cultural, Political As Also Topographical Set-Ups Is That All These Countries Shared The Common Colonial Experience. So, From India To Nigeria, Canada To Kenya, Australia To Pakistan We Can Discern The Varying Patterns Of A Common Human Experience And Emergence Of Cultural Nationalism Leading To An Emphasis On Their Distinctiveness In Literary Heritage And Assertion Of Cultural Identity. Commonwealth Literature Thus Presents A Rich Variety Of Aesthetic And Cultural Experience.The Essays Collected In This Volume Spanning Different Countries And Periods Try To Offer A Taste Of This Interesting Variety. The Range Covered Here Stretches From West African Drama To South African Fiction, Australian And Caribbean Literature To That Of Indian Diaspora And South Asian Poetry Of The Saarc Countries. Discussions On Indian Literature Cover The Varied Areas From Devotional Mysticism To Realistic Social Satire, Myth-Oriented Novel To Feminism, Dialogism And Reassessment Of Postcolonial Theories.The Authors Focused In This Discussion Promises A Colourful Spectrum; They Include Wole Soyinka, Ahmed Essop, Salman Rushdie, David Malouf, Wilson Harris, Patrick White, Rohinton Mistry, G.V. Desani, Aurobindo, Manohar Magonkar, R.K. Narayan, Gurcharan Das, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kamala Das, K.V. Venkataramani, Margaret Craven, Along With A Host Of Saarc Poets.The Volume Will Be Useful For The Students And Scholars Of Commonwealth Literature, And Will Also Prove Interesting To The Common Reader.
This volume celebrates Wilson Harris’s eightieth birthday and more than fifty years of creative writing. The most original and profound writer of the Caribbean, he has revolutionized the art of fiction and its language. He has himself contributed to this volume, and several Caribbean writers of a younger generation – Cyril Dabydeen, Fred D’Aguiar, Andrew Jefferson-Miles, Mark McWatt, Caryl Phillips, Lawrence Scott – pay tribute here to his genius. The essays are by critics from the Caribbean, Britain, the United States and continental Europe who have long admired and explored his work. They cover the various genres of Harris’s writing, his poetry, fiction and criticism, and deal with major aspects of his work, bringing out its relevance to the contemporary context of violence in the world, its modernity, and its contribution to the renewal of the humanities.
Since Ovid, the concept of metamorphosis has been an irresistible temptation for writers, not only as a metaphor for shifting personal identity but as a way of exploring ideas of cultural and political transition. The essays in this volume show how authors from Ovid, Chaucer, and Shakespeare to Thomas Mann, Karen Blixen, and 20th-century science fiction writers, have used this pervasive concept to raise fundamental questions about the nature and agency of radical change. Among the broad topics addressed are how shifts in scientific understanding intersect with and even effect transformations in literary expression; the differing values attached to the language of metamorphosis over time; and the connection between these values and structures of power, particularly gender relations. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Darko Suvin, Alessandro Perutelli, Elsa Linguanti, Douglas Burnham, Enrico Giaccherini, Lia Pacinotti, Michael St John, Rocco Coronato, Silvia Bruti, Elisabetta Cori, Judith Rorai Milanesi, Catherine Burgass, Luca Biagiotti, Stefania Magnoni, Daniel Weavis, Julian North, Ashley Chantler, Martin Halliwell, Patrick Quinn, Roberta Ferrari, Silvia Bigliazzi, and Nicoletta Caputo.
Gianluca Delfino’s study of one of the Caribbean’s most controversial authors paves the way for looking at Wilson Harris’s body of work in a new light. Harris’s imaginative approach to reality is discussed in relation to the categories of history and time with reference to several novels, with a special focus on The Infinite Rehearsal, Jonestown, and The Dark Jester, spanning more than forty years of his vast literary production. Delfino’s analysis, encompassing critical perspectives ranging from African philosophy to Jungian readings through historiography and anthropology, demonstrates that Harris’s works as a whole show a remarkable unity of thought rooted in their author’s complex imagination. As a result, the cross-cultural quality of Harris’s thought emerges as a healing outcome of the traumatic colonial encounter, bringing together elements of Amerindian, African, and European origin in an ongoing dialogue with time, nature, and the psyche.
This text has two main objectives: to explore how travel narrative works as a form of cross-cultural representation and to propose a critical method for its study; and to set out the ethical imperatives of travel as a mode of encounter with difference that leads to the performative enactment of becoming other.
