Zones of Instability: Literature, Postcolonialism, and the Nation

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Zones of Instability This page intentionally left blank Zones of Instability Literature, Postcolonialism, and the Nation Imre Szeman The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London ∫ 2003 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2003 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Szeman, Imre, 1968– Zones of instability : literature, postcolonialism, and the nation / Imre Szeman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. isbn 0-8018-6803-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Commonwealth literature (English)—History and criticism. 2. Nationalism and literature—Commonwealth countries—History— 20th century. 3. Postcolonialism—Commonwealth countries. 4. Commonwealth countries—In literature. 5. Caribbean Area—In literature. 6. Postcolonialism in literature. 7. Decolonization in literature. 8. Nationalism in literature. 9. Nigeria—In literature. 10. Canada—In literature. I. Title. pr9080 .s97 2003 820.9%9171241—dc21 2002154083 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. For Maria, Joseph, and Maya This page intentionally left blank A Brechtian maxim: ‘‘Don’t start from the good old things but the bad new ones.’’ — w a l t e r b e n j a m i n , ‘‘Conversations with Brecht’’ . . . of reanimating already existing themes, of arousing opposed strategies , or giving way to irreconcilable interests, of making it possible, with a particular set of concepts, to play different games . . . — m i c h e l f o u c a u l t , The Archaeology of Knowledge I do not say that the world will be reduced to the expedients and grotesque disorder of the South American republics; or that perhaps we may even return to a state of savagery, and prowl, gun in hand, in search of food, through the grass-covered ruins of our civilization. No, for such adventures would imply the survival of a sort of vital energy, an echo of earlier ages. Typical victims of the inexorable moral laws, we shall perish by the thing by which we thought to live. Machinery will have so much Americanized us, progress will have so much atrophied our spiritual element, that nothing in the sanguinary, blasphemous or unnatural dreams of the Utopists can be compared to what will actually happen. — c h a r l e s b a u d e l a i r e , Intimate Journals It is not enough to try to get back to the people in that past out of which they have already emerged; rather we must join them in that fluctuating movement which they are giving a shape to, and which, as soon as it has started, will be the signal for everything to be called in question . Let there be no mistake about it; it is to this zone of occult instability where the people dwell that we must come; and it is there that our souls are crystallized and that our perceptions and our lives are transfused with light. — f r a n t z fa n o n , The Wretched of the Earth This page intentionally left blank ...