The first edited collection to bring ecocritical studies into a necessary dialogue with postcolonial literature, this volume offers rich and suggestive ways to explore the relationship between humans and nature around the globe, drawing from texts from Africa and the Caribbean, as well as the Pacific Islands and South Asia. Turning to contemporary works by both well- and little-known postcolonial writers, the diverse contributions highlight the literary imagination as crucial to representing what Eduoard Glissant calls the “aesthetics of the earth.” The essays are organized around a group of thematic concerns that engage culture and cultivation, arboriculture and deforestation, the lives of animals, and the relationship between the military and the tourist industry. With chapters that address works by J. M. Coetzee, Kiran Desai, Derek Walcott, Alejo Carpentier, Zakes Mda, and many others, Postcolonial Ecologies makes a remarkable contribution to rethinking the role of the humanities in addressing global environmental issues.

Features

• First edited collection on postcolonial literature and the environment
• Includes overlooked Caribbean, Latin American, African and South Asian scholars and activists who have contributed to global environmentalism and a sense of place in literary production
• Focuses on an eclectic group of writers from across the globe that includes Coetzee, Zakes Mda, and Derek Walcott
• Amply demonstrates the postcolonial’s long-standing concern with environmentalism

Reviews

“This is a cutting edge work that not only situates ecology and biopolitics firmly at the center of postcolonial studies, but also shows the importance of postcolonial literatures to global debates on climate change and environmental degradation. A superb collection!” –Bill Ashcroft, author of Caliban’s Voice: The Transformation of English in Post-Colonial Literatures

“Postcolonial Ecologies, with its outstanding roster of contributors, is a crucial intervention in the internationalisation of ecocriticism and the greening of postcolonialism. Framed by DeLoughrey and Handley’s well-informed and lucid introduction, this diverse and formidable collection clarifies the inseparability of environmental issues from neo-colonial relations.” –Greg Garrard, author of Ecocriticism

For more information–or to order–go to http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LiteratureEnglish/WorldLiterature/~~/dmlldz11c2EmY2k9OTc4MDE5NTM5NDQzNg==