Literary Criticism. Postcolonialism. This collection of essays charts the author's intellectual journey as an academic teaching "postcolonial literature" in a Canadian university. Mukherjee challenges and shows the inadequacy of the postcolonial, feminist, and postmodern theories that emerge from the metropolitan centres of the West. Using detailed, nuanced, and informed readings of a variety of authors from India, Africa, and Canada she demonstrates how in their universalizing such theories fail to take account of the specific histories, cultures, and struggles within the so-called third-world countries as well as the non-European immigrant and Native communities of North America.

Author City: Toronto, ON CAN

Arun Mukherjee is Professor of English at York Universtiy in Toronto. One of the most respected literary critics in Canada, noted for her highly original and bold observations, she is the author of the acclaimed Oppositional Aethetics: Readings from a Hyphenated Space.