Reading Postcolonial Literature - by Hayley G Toth (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An Open Access edition is available thanks to the kind sponsorship of the libraries participating in the Jisc Open Access Community Framework OpenUP initiative.

Debates about reading in postcolonial studies rarely discuss non-professional readers, except to secure the authority of professional reading practices. In Reading Postcolonial Literature, Hayley G. Toth places non-professional reading practices in dialogue with received academic wisdom to debunk common-sense assumptions about non-professional readers as 'Western' or 'neocolonial' consumers. Drawing on reading practices recorded in academic books, journal articles and on online book-reviewing platforms like Amazon and Goodreads, Toth draws attention to important continuities between professional and non-professional practices of reading postcolonial literature. At the same time, she highlights that non-professionals often have little desire to emulate the practices of professional postcolonial critics. Precisely by not adopting the established protocols and methods of postcolonial studies, non-professional readers call attention to the limits of dominant approaches to reading in the discipline.

Across four chapters, Toth examines the relationship between reading and identity during the Rushdie affair, the difference between reading and address, the challenges posed by difficult texts and the legitimacy of non-understanding, and the reception of popular texts primarily read by non-professional audiences. Reading Postcolonial Literature demonstrates that reception matters in any claims we make about the value of reading postcolonial literature, and offers new ways forward for the practice, study and teaching of reading in the discipline.

Review Quotes

"Reading Postcolonial Literature actively positions its findings within the area of postcolonial reception studies, aligning itself both with and against available research. For example, it challenges the prevailing assumption that the literary marketplace only compromises critical agency, while arguing that reading is hybrid and underpinned by a combination of textual/materialist approaches." Professor James Procter, Newcastle University

"This is an original, searching, and thoroughly researched book that makes an important argument about the current state of postcolonial studies. By comparing professional and non-professional modes of reading in relation to four texts that raise different issues, the author makes a strong case for a fuller acknowledgement of the value of extending critical attention to a broad spectrum of readers and for a greater appreciation of the social and material basis of literary consumption." Professor Derek Attridge, University of York