And the Birds Began to Sing: Religion en Literature in Post-Colonial CulturesTaking as its starting-point the ambiguous heritage left by the British Empire to its former colonies, dominions and possessions, And the Birds Began to Sing marks a new departure in the interdisciplinary study of religion and literature. Gathered under the rubric Christianity and Colonialism, essays on Brian Moore. Timothy Findley, Margaret Atwood and Marian Engel, Thomas King, Les A. Murray, David Malouf, Mudrooroo and Philip McLaren, R.A.K. Mason, Maurice Gee, Keri Hulme, Epeli Hau'ofa, J.M. Coetzee, Christopher Okigbo, Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola and Ngugi wa Thiong'o explore literary portrayals of the effects of British Christianity upon settler and native cultures in Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, and the Africas. These essays share a sense of the dominant presence of Christianity as an inherited system of religious thought and practice to be adapted to changing post-colonial conditions or to be resisted as the lingering ideology of colonial times. In the second section of the collection, Empire and World Religions, essays on Paule Marshall and George Lamming, Jean Rhys, Olive Senior and Caribbean poetry, V.S. Naipaul, Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya, and Bharati Mukherjee interrogate literature exploring relations between the scions of British imperialism and religious traditions other than Christianity. Expressly concerned with literary embodiments of belief-systems in post-colonial cultures (particularly West African religions in the Caribbean and Hinduism on the Indian subcontinent), these essays also share a sense of Christianity as the pervasive presence of an ideological rhetoric among the economic, social and political dimensions of imperialism. In a polemical Afterword, the editor argues that modes of reading religion and literature in post-colonial cultures are characterised by a theodical preoccupation with a praxis of equity. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal Achebe Achebe's African allegory Antoinette Australian becomes belief biblical British bush Caribbean ceremony character Christ Christian Coetzee colonial and imperial contemporary context critical culture dark death discourse divine English Erzulie essay European experience father Feast of Lupercal fiction Findley Findley's Genesis Ghede gods Hau'ofa Hindu human ideology Igbo Indo-Anglian island Jane Eyre Kerewin Lies of Silence literary lives London Malouf's Maori marginalised Markandaya Mason Matigari missionary Mudrooroo Mukherjee Murray myth Naipaul narrative narrator Native American nature Ngugi novel Obeah Okigbo Olorun orishas palm wine poem poet poetry political post-colonial postmodern priest protagonist Protestant puritanism reader reading religion and literature religious Rhys ritual Rochester role Roman Catholic sacred secular sense sexual social society spiritual story symbol theology things Tiko Tikongs Toronto traditional transformation vision Voodoo Walcott West Indian Western Wide Sargasso Sea woman women writing York Yoruba Zealand