Abstract

This essay discusses how The Moor's Last Sigh (1995) can be regarded as Salman Rushdie's attempt to use a combination of Western and Eastern fairy-tale intertexts, including Washington Irving's The Alhambra (1832), to create his own fairy tale about utopian worlds, through which he participates in the postcolonial resistance to Euro-American representations of the Other. The concept of fairy-tale utopia used here draws from Ernst Bloch's notion of the utopian imagination. Although Rushdie delays the realization of his venture until the future, the novel's ending may be seen as a time-gaining operation legitimizing his postcolonial practice and providing him with an opportunity to fashion his own vision of India.

pdf

Share