Book contents
- Salman Rushdie in Context
- Salman Rushdie in Context
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Life
- Part II Literary and Creative Contexts
- Part III Historical and Cultural Contexts
- Part IV Critical Theoretical Contexts
- Chapter 23 Salman Rushdie and Postcolonialism
- Chapter 24 Salman Rushdie and Cosmopolitanism
- Chapter 25 Salman Rushdie and Postmodernism
- Part V Reception, Criticism, and Adaptation
- Works by Salman Rushdie
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 25 - Salman Rushdie and Postmodernism
from Part IV - Critical Theoretical Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2023
- Salman Rushdie in Context
- Salman Rushdie in Context
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Life
- Part II Literary and Creative Contexts
- Part III Historical and Cultural Contexts
- Part IV Critical Theoretical Contexts
- Chapter 23 Salman Rushdie and Postcolonialism
- Chapter 24 Salman Rushdie and Cosmopolitanism
- Chapter 25 Salman Rushdie and Postmodernism
- Part V Reception, Criticism, and Adaptation
- Works by Salman Rushdie
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter discusses the ways in which Rushdie and his work can be understood in the context of the aesthetics and ideologies of postmodernism. Rushdie’s novels deploy postmodern fictional devices, such as intertextuality and metafictional interruptions, to explore questions of politics, epistemology, and ontology. In his early work, Rushdie provides an instance of both the potential for postmodern techniques to craft original political perspectives commensurate with the aims of postcolonialism, and the limitations of a western theoretical perspective sceptical of those grand narratives of history and subjectivity over which postcolonial subjects were only now gaining purchase. His status as literary spokesperson for immigrant communities in Britain was revised after the Satanic Verses affair, and subsequent novels are sometimes found to lack the radical critique offered by the early work. This chapter argues that the development of Rushdie’s writing – particularly in recent volumes – shows evidence of a move away from the deconstructive application of postmodern strategies in particular postcolonial contexts to challenge political master-narratives, and towards a more general exploration of classical humanist themes such as love, good and evil, life and death. This chapter ends with illustrative readings of two recent Rushdie novels, The Golden House and Quichotte.
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- Salman Rushdie in Context , pp. 318 - 328Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
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