May 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Elleke Boehmer’s seminal text Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors, first published by OUP in 1995 with a second edition following a decade later. It remains a landmark publication in the field of colonial and postcolonial literature and beyond, read, studied, and taught the world over.
To mark this wonderful achievement, Elleke Boehmer reflects on her book and its longevity and shares some of her “must reads.” We are also pleased to offer chapter 4 “Metropolitans and Mimics”—as chosen by the author—free-to-read this May.
“I had no idea that, 30 years on, the book would still be globally read, cited, prescribed, and discussed…
Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors continues to find its way to readers right around the world. In this sense, it is not unlike the migrating metaphors of the title—the images and motifs connecting imperial and postimperial texts that the book explores throughout.
Used with permission.
When I first published the book, I hoped that it would give greater profile to the great wealth and variety of postcolonial writing, alongside investigating its complicated roots in traditions of empire writing. On balance, I daresay that it has achieved those aims. But I had no idea that, 30 years on, the book would still be globally read, cited, prescribed, and discussed, as my academic news feeds tell me it is. I ask myself what its features are that have contributed to its ongoing success. From what I can tell, these include the book’s interest in empire as a system of textual circulation, and also its focus on the exchange of metaphors of land and belonging that interlink Anglophone postcolonial writings worldwide. Essays from across the postcolonial and world literature fields, including in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, have picked up on these aspects. The translation of the book into Mandarin in 1999 seems to have ensured the book’s position also as prominent critical text on university courses in China. About 15 years ago, when first I visited the country, wherever I went people said kind things about the book, and talked about its beautiful cover, based on a painting by the Australian artist Lisa Hill.
The second and expanded edition, published in 2005, offered an updated bibliography and timeline, and two brand-new chapters featuring more postcolonial women writers from the turn of the new century, and more coverage of Indigenous and First Nations authors from countries like Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada.
Elleke Boehmer, Oxford, 2025
Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edition
Robert Young
Fascinating for its treatment of the postcolonial as a mind-set, as expressed in a wide range of cultural forms.
Pacific Islands Writing: The Postcolonial Literatures of Aotearoa/New Zealand and Oceania
Michelle Keown
A sparkling and wide-ranging discussion of the postcolonial writing of a region that covers half the surface of the earth, oceanically-speaking.
Present Imperfect: Contemporary South African Writing
Andrew van der Vlies
A far-reaching account of post-millennial writing from South Africa, through the sometimes-unlikely lens of affect theory.
V.S. Naipaul, Caribbean Writing and Caribbean Thought
William Ghosh
A compelling account of the towering figure of V.S. Naipaul set in relation to the layered Caribbean contexts from which his writing sprang.
Editor’s note: Read William Ghosh writing on the OUPblog: Homi K. Bhabha on V.S. Naipaul: in conversation with William Ghosh
Live Artefacts: Literature in a Cognitive Environment
Terence Cave
A provocative study of literary writing, postcolonial or otherwise, as an instrument through which we come to new understanding.
All books cited in this blog are available to read via Oxford Academic. Use your institutional access to sign in, or if you don’t have access, recommend Oxford Academic to your library.
Featured image by Elleke Boehmer and used with permission.
Recent Comments
There are currently no comments.