Today, ‘English Literature’ does not refer to literature produced by England alone. It is now broader in its scope and refers to literatures from various parts of the world and from diverse cultures, written in English. Thus, we have a category, ‘postcolonial literature’, which describes writing from former colonized nations in Asia, Africa and South America. ‘Postcolonial’ here serves as a temporal marker, referring to the period and writing after colonialism (colonialism is the process of settlement by Europeans in non-European, that is, Asian, African, South American and Australian spaces). ‘Postcoloniality’ captures the strategies of resistance, negotiation and cultural assertion that countries such as India adopt to deal with increasing neocolonial interference and control exerted by the ‘developed’, ‘First World’ nations. The ‘postcolonial’ describes a whole new experience of political freedom, new ideologies (of development, for instance, or economic freedom and self-reliance in many postcolonial societies) and new agendas. This postcolonial situation or context has produced an enduring body of writing that has expanded the boundaries of ‘English Literature’. Other terms used to describe these literatures include ‘new literatures in English’ or ‘international literature in English’. Thus, we need to perhaps use the term ‘literatures in English’ rather than ‘English literature’, since most literature is now multicultural, rooted in more than one culture/tradition.

We do, however, need to keep in mind that ‘English Literature’ has been used as an umbrella term to describe writings from Wales, Scotland and Ireland too (countries and cultures that have resisted being clubbed under ‘English’) and even translations and adaptations from European writings.