Postcolonial Unconscious

The Postcolonial Unconscious is a major attempt to reconstruct the whole field of postcolonial studies. In this magisterial and, at times, polemical study, Neil Lazarus argues that the key critical concepts that form the very foundation of the field need to be re-assessed and questioned. Drawing on a vast range of literary sources, Lazarus investigates works and authors from Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and the Arab world, South, Southeast and East Asia, to reconsider them from a postcolonial perspective. Alongside this, he offers bold new readings of some of the most influential figures in the field: Fredric Jameson, Edward Said and Frantz Fanon. A tour de force of postcolonial studies, this book will set the agenda for the future, probing how the field has come to develop in the directions it has and why and how it can grow further.

Review: 'Neil Lazarus's scale is that of the epic, for he knows that what is happening in the field of Postcolonial Studies is an entire re-thinking of the questions, procedures and visions that have guided us over the last thirty years. The Postcolonial Unconscious is the work of a passionate intellectual craftsman.' Ato Quayson, University of Toronto

'Not simply brilliant, but definitive - a map for the future of postcolonial studies. Every line is vividly historical, patiently logical, but also unexpected and generous: the sociologist meets the poet. Along with a compelling new theory of 'peripheral modernism', Lazarus introduces us to a vast body of novels and poetry from every corner of the postcolonial world, with a range that is simply unmatched by anyone. Along the way, he shows that postcolonial theory is in its literature, not in what goes by that name in the metropolitan academy. A profoundly important, explosive, and paradigm-shifting book.' Timothy Brennan, University of Minnesota

"For more than two decades, Lazarus (Univ. of Wisconsin) has been a major figure in postcolonial studies . . . Yet here he sets out to demonstrate that 'in its prevailing and consolidated aspect,' postcolonial studies has 'not been adequate' to the realities of the postcolonial world; indeed, it has 'served fairly systematically to mystify it.' . . . Highly recommended." --Choice