Literary Research and Postcolonial Literatures in English: Strategies and Sources

Postcolonial literatures can be defined as the body of creative work written by authors whose lands were formerly subjugated to colonial rule. In previous volumes of this series, the research literature of former British colonies Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand have been addressed. This volume offers guidance for those researching the postcolonial literature of the former British colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia. Among the forty nations represented in this volume are South Africa, India, Pakistan, Ghana, Jamaica, Swaziland, Belize, and Namibia.

With the exception of South Africa (which formed the Union of South Africa in 1910), this guide picks up its coverage in 1947, when both India and Pakistan gained their independence. The literature created by writers from these nations represents the diverse experiences in the postcolonial condition and are the subject of this book. The volume provides best-practice suggestions for the research process and discusses how to take advantage of primary text resources in a variety of formats, both digital and paper based: bibliographies, indexes, research guides, archives, special collections, and microforms.

Angela Courtney is head of the Arts and Humanities Department at the Indiana University-Bloomington Libraries, where she is also the librarian for English literatures, film studies, theatre and drama, communication and culture, and comparative literature. Melissa S. Van Vuuren is associate professor and English librarian at James Madison University. H. Faye Christenberry is English studies librarian at the University of Washington Libraries. Liorah Golomb is assistant professor and humanities librarian at the University of Oklahoma.