Friends and Enemies: The Scribal Politics of Post/Colonial Literature

This timely contribution to debates about the future of postcolonial theory explores the troubled relationship between politics and the discipline, both in the sense of the radical political changes associated with the anti-colonial struggle and the implication of literary writers in institutional discourses of power. Using Haiti as a key example, Chris Bongie explores issues of commemoration and commodification of the post/colonial by pairing early nineteenth-century Caribbean texts with contemporary works. An apt volume for an age that struggles with the reality of memories of anti-colonial resistance, Friends and Enemies is a provocative take on postcolonial scholarship.

Chris Bongie is professor and Queen’s National Scholar at the Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He is the author of Islands and Exiles: The Creole Identities of Post/Colonial Literature, among other titles.