Re-Shaping Culture and Identity in Postcolonial Fiction: Salman Rushdie and Abdulrazak Gurnah

Şennur Bakırtaş

Feb 2023 · Literature Series Book 5 · Transnational Press London

About this ebook

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

About the author

Şennur Bakırtaş is a full-time assistant professor of Translation Studies at Department of Translation and Interpreting at Ataturk University, Erzurum Turkey. Her teaching and research areas are postcolonial literature, women and gender studies, migration studies, translation studies, and cultural studies. She received her BA from Ataturk University, Department of English Language and Literature in 2007. She went to Taiwan as an exchange student in 2006 and completed Chinese Summer Program at National Chung Hsing University. She received her MA from Ataturk University in 2010 with a three-month collaboration period with the University of Leeds, UK. She completed a Glottodrama course in Rome, Italy in 2012 sponsored by European Commission. She has earned her PhD from Ataturk University (2012-201). She was also offered a place at the University of Kent, UK with a fellowship program supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey in 2015 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Abdulrazak Gurnah, the winner of 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. She has published and presented papers nationally and internationally, translated books, also worked as an interpreter in international organizations such as European Youth Olympic Festival and Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development as well as Turkish State Theatres.