Postcolonial Lack and Aesthetic Promise in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)

Alexandra W. Schultheis, Associate Professor (Creator)

Institution

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )

Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/

Abstract: In his documentary film The Riddle of Midnight, Salman Rushdie returns to India 40 years after independence to see if a definable national identity exists. He interviews Indians of different backgrounds and economic statuses, and a crowd confronts him and asks "How can a country that never previously existed become independent? What does it mean to call this crowd of separate national histories, conflicting cultures, and warring faiths, a nation?" Rushdie, is narrator and national spokesman, answers unsatisfactorily, “It's by the lack of definition that you know it's you.”

Postcolonial Lack and Aesthetic Promise in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh
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Additional Information

Publication

Twentieth Century Literature 47.4 (Winter): 569-595.

Language: English

Date: 2001

Keywords

India, Salman Rushdie, Literary analysis, National identity, Family