Postcolonial Modernism and the Visual Book, 1947-1968

FAIN: FT-270576-20

Emily Katherine Hyde
Rowan University (Glassboro, NJ 08028-1702)

Research and writing leading to a book on the modernist illustrations and visual imagery of postcolonial novels in English.

Research and writing leading to publication of a book on the modernist visuality of postcolonial novels in English The British Empire broke apart between 1947 and 1968, and writers from newly independent countries produced a wave of fiction that wrote new nations, subjects, settings, and plots, even new kinds of English into literary history. Previous studies have overlooked the intense visuality of these works—they are packed with illustrations, rhetorical allusions to the visual arts, and descriptions of visual images. “Postcolonial Modernism and the Visual Book” examines the early years of decolonization to show that postcolonial writers in this period transformed modernism in the visual arts and used it to decolonize English literature. I study the collaboration of African, Caribbean, and British writers and artists and show how crossing disciplinary boundaries was crucial to undoing the colonial systems of knowledge and representation that underpin literary history and form.