Review of The Writer's Sense of the Past, edited by Kirpal Singh; and Australian/Canadian Literatures in English: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Russell McDougall and Gillian Whitlock

Abstract

Commonwealth literature, as an area of study, is riddled with contradictions that have made it an easy target for those schools of literary criticism which are more secure about their identity. One of the reasons for this is that the word 'commonwealth' is itself so severely marked by the history of British colonialism that it cannot shake off imperialist and racist associations even when it is most committed to exposing colonial injustice. If it is only the loose and increasingly anachronistic idea of the 'commonwealth' that defines this area of inquiry then it is no wonder that contemporary literary theorists, whether their leanings are Marxist or deconstructionist, have steered well clear of it. And yet it is precisely because of their colonial histories that 'commonwealth' countries are producing literatures that cannot escape political reading even if they are not explicitly political in their writing.