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Life Writing and the End of Empire - Homecoming in Autobiographical Narratives
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Life Writing and the End of Empire - Homecoming in Autobiographical Narratives
Series: New Directions in Life Narrative
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Exploring how legacies of British colonialism have shaped modern
life narrative, this book offers comparative studies of four white
life writers — Penelope Lively, J. G. Ballard, Doris Lessing and
Janet Frame — who wrote and rewrote their childhoods in colonies,
international settlements, and protectorates of the British Empire
across numerous autobiographical texts. By drawing on their life
writings, frequently side-lined for their fiction, Emma Parker
illuminates hitherto unrecognized connections between these authors
after they travelled from their respective childhood homes in Egypt
(Lively), Shanghai (Ballard), Southern Rhodesia (Lessing) and New
Zealand (Frame), arriving in London across a twelve-year period
from 1945-1957. With their autobiographies intersecting at a
crucial historical juncture when colonial rule was being
dismantled, this book asks what it means to be ‘at home’ in the
former British Empire, scrutinizing the spaces of habitation and
the everyday details through which all four authors remember
colonialism, from settler mansions and African farms, to empty
swimming pools, heirlooms and photograph albums. Rounding off with
an examination of material cultures at the end of empire, Parker
emphasizes how four particular artefacts (a tallboy, a suitcase, a
traveller’s trunk and a duchesse dresser) emblematize and unlock
the legacies of colonialism for Lively, Ballard, Lessing and Frame.
When read together, these autobiographical texts reveal how empire
and its aftermath seeped into everyday life, and that imperialism
functioned as part of a given world both during and after colonial
rule. Also coining the term ‘speculative life writing’,
describing the practice wherein an author rewrites their previous
memoirs or autobiographies with an alternative outcome, this book
advances rich readings and new conceptual insights into these
esteemed authors and the fields of life writing and postcolonial
studies.
General
Imprint: |
Bloomsbury Academic
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Series: |
New Directions in Life Narrative |
Release date: |
March 2024 |
Authors: |
Emma Parker
(Lecturer in Postcolonial Literature)
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Dimensions: |
234 x 156mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
224 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-350-35379-4 |
Categories: |
Books
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LSN: |
1-350-35379-5 |
Barcode: |
9781350353794 |
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