Literature in the Postcolony

Historical Figures and Events

“The Perpetual Search” – Luna Njoku Dominguez

In week 3, both Dionne Brand and Saidiya Hartman attempted to define the impossible experience of attempting to trace an origin which has been displaced by the transatlantic slave trade. This map is an attempt to represent the entanglement of pasts and migrations (forced and later voluntary) which produce identities and global dynamics but which…

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Coolie Woman: Reading the Journey of Indenture from India to Guyana – Anjali Chandawarkar

In the context of this course, my cultural map traces the journey of indentured labour from the East Coast of India to Guyana (or British Guiana, as it was known earlier) in the Caribbean. I have based it entirely on Gaiutra Bahadur’s book, Coolie Woman: An Odyssey of Indenture (2013). Bahadur’s work makes visible an…

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