imaginary homelands

[intrikate88]

I'm working on revising an old paper to be a writing sample for an application, and I came across this passage in one of my sources. I wish I could use the entire thing in this paper, because it really sums up all my points on colonial/postcolonial stories of hybridization in fantasy stories. (My paper was on Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword, comparing it with stories such as A Passage to India, Season of Migration to the North, and Kipling's "Lispeth". If you care.)
 

As Richard Wright found long ago in America, black and white descriptions of society are no longer compatible. Fantasy, or the mingling of fantasy and naturalism, is one way of dealing with these problems. It offers a way of echoing in the form of our work the issues faced by all of us: how to build a new, 'modern' world out of an old, legend-haunted civilization, an old culture which we have brought into the heart of a newer one. But whatever technical solutions we may find, Indian writers in these islands, like others who have migrated into the north from the south, are capable of writing from a kind of double perspective: because they, we, are at one and the same time insiders and outsiders in this society. This stereoscopic vision is perhaps what we can offer in place of 'whole sight'.

-Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991, "Imaginary Homelands"

 

Comments

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

are capable of writing from a kind of double perspective: because they, we, are at one and the same time insiders and outsiders in this society.
Oh FLAIL. that is so perfect. I have read nothing of this issue before but it seems to make so much sense and is so beautifully conveyed.

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

:DDD

I LOVE Salman Rushdie's perspective, and this whole notion of cultural hybridity has fascinated me for so long- it's seriously like academic candy to me (hence my throwing myself all over your stories when I found them.) There are several more authors who have had a lot to say about these ideas, and I'm slowly collecting their books. I can definitely get a reading recommendation list together for you if you're interested! In any case, this particular essay "Imaginary Homelands" I highly recommend, it is altogether brilliant.

Also Rushdie is on staff at the university I'm applying to! *dances*