Reading the Anglophone Novel in the Age of Globalization

Abstract

At its most basic, the Anglophone novel means any novel written in English; but over the years, the Anglophone novel has been studied as a specific genre of fiction: a transnational mode of literary production that addresses the histories of colonialism and ongoing realities of neocolonialism or neoliberalism. From the 1970s when Anglophone novels were read within the context of Commonwealth literature (literatures from the United Kingdom and its former colonies such as India, Africa, and the Caribbean), to the rise of postcolonial studies in the 1990s when Anglophone novels were collectively theorized as "Third-World" literature, an anti-colonial resistance at the margins writing against the literary traditions of the West, contextual and cultural diversity has made the field very difficult, if not impossible, to define with precision. My research, a special issue of The Global South Journal, will bring together 11 essays that examine persistent and new forces that shape our reading habits and interpretations of Anglophone novels. This research seeks to reinvigorate the need to study the Anglophone novel as a witnessing that documents the often-forgotten lived experiences of colonial violence, and to expose an ongoing struggle where only certain, highly selective marginal voices are included in the global literary market, where literary value and aesthetic judgement continue to reflect/reinforce Anglo-American tastes of and attitudes toward what's purportedly "global."