The Postcolonial Epic

This book demonstrates the epic genres enduring relevance to the Global South. It identifies a contemporary avatar of classical epic, the postcolonial epic, ushered in by Herman Melvilles Moby Dick, a foundational text of North America, and exemplified by Derek Walcotts Caribbean masterpiece Omeros and Amitav Ghoshs South Asian saga, the Ibis trilogy. The work focuses on the epic genres rich potential to articulate postimperial concerns with nation and migration across the Global North/South divide. It foregrounds postcolonial developments in the genre including a shift from politics to political economy, subaltern reconfigurations of capitalist and imperial temporalities, and the poststructuralist preoccupation with language and representation. In addition to bringing to light hitherto unexamined North/South affiliations between Melville, Walcott and Ghosh, the book proposes a fresh approach to epic through the comparative concept of political epic, where an avowed national politics promoting a cultures pure origins coexists uneasily with a disavowed poetics of intertextual borrowing from other cultures. An important intervention in literary studies, this volume will interest scholars and researchers of postcolonial studies, especially South Asian and Caribbean literature, Global South studies, transnational studies and cultural studies.