The Realist Impulse and the Future of Postcoloniality

This essay describes a trend in contemporary Third World writing characterized by a “realist impulse.” The realist impulse is a transition in representational mode, style, and/or medium that entails a new textual engagement with the contemporary world, evident in gestures such as stories set in the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Novel : a forum on fiction 2016-08, Vol.49 (2), p.278-294
Main Author:	Anjaria, Ulka
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	1900-1999 2000-2099 Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (1977- ) Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (b.1977) Americanah Authors Bhagat, Chetan Bhagat, Chetan (b.1974) Critical Theory English language literature English Literature Half of a Yellow Sun Indian literature injustice Literary Criticism Literary Theory Literature Literature and Literary Studies Metaphor Modernism Nigerian literature Nonfiction novel Novels Politics Postcolonial Literature Postcolonialism Realism Roy, Arundhati setting suffering The Cost of Living The God of Small Things Theory and Philosophy time Twenty-First Century Writers Writing
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Summary:	This essay describes a trend in contemporary Third World writing characterized by a “realist impulse.” The realist impulse is a transition in representational mode, style, and/or medium that entails a new textual engagement with the contemporary world, evident in gestures such as stories set in the present rather than the past, the trimming of modernist, metaphorical, and metafictional language for a more stripped-down and less ostensibly self-conscious aesthetics, and/or the claiming of a new political urgency in both nonfiction and fictional writing alike. This impulse is evident in a range of new literary and cultural productions since around 2000 in India and across the Third World and marks the contemporary moment by registering the inadequacy of earlier literary trends in deliberate ways. This essay seeks to illuminate the contours of the realist impulse through readings of two contemporary novelists: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) and Chetan Bhagat (India). Despite coming from different countries and political positions, both authors break open existing paradigms in postcolonial literature and represent a new imagining of the potential relationship between center and periphery outside those paradigms.
ISSN:	0029-5132 1945-8509