The authors, three leading figures in post-colonial studies, open up debates about the interrelationships of post-colonial literatures, investigate the powerful forces acting on language in the post-colonial text, and show how these texts constitute a radical critique of Eurocentric notions of literature and language.

General Editor's Preface.
Acknowledgements.
Introduction:What are post-colonial literatures?, Post-colonial literatures and English Studies, Development of post-colonial literatures, Hegemony, Language, Place and displacement, Post-coloniality and theory.

1. Cutting the ground: critical models of post-colonial literatures:National and regional models, Comparisons between two or more regions, The 'Black writing' model, Wider comparative models, Models of hybridity and syncreticity.

2. Re-placing language:textual strategies in post-colonial writing:Abrogation and appropriation, Language and abrogation, A post-colonial linguistic theory:the Creole continuum, The metonymic function of language variance, Strategies of appropriation in post-colonial writing.

3. Re-placing the text:the liberation of post-colonial writing:The imperial moment: control of the means of communication, Colonialism and silence:Lewis Nkosi's Mating Birds, Colonialism and 'authenticity':V.S Naipaul's The Mimic Men, Radical Otherness and hybridity:Timothy Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage, Appropriating marginality:Janet Frame's The Edge of the Alphabet, Appropriating the frame of power:R.K. Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets.

4. Theory at the crossroads:indigenous theory and post-colonial reading:Indian literary theories, African literary theories, The settler colonies, Caribbean theories.

5. Re-placing theory:post-colonial writing and literary theory:Post-colonial literatures and postmodernism, Post-colonial reconstructions:literature, meaning, value, Post-colonialism as a reading strategy, Re-thinking the Post-colonial. Conclusion:More english than English.

Reader's guide.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.