The new literatures in English
pp. 163-177
in: Martin Middeke, Timo Müller, Christina Wald, Hubert Zapf (eds), English and American studies, Stuttgart, Metzler, 2012Abstract
The New Literatures in English are not that new altogether. They have emerged from processes of colonization that transformed large tracts of the world from the late fifteenth century onwards, and some of them can trace their beginnings to the nineteenth or even late eighteenth century, when English, Irish or Scottish settlers in the Caribbean, Canada or South Africa first began to create an "overseas literature," and enslaved or colonized people first began to reflect on their current situation and future perspectives utilizing the medium of what was then "the colonizer's tongue." Other literatures in English are indeed new, sometimes startlingly so: as distinct literary fields, West African literature in English emerged in the 1950s, East African literature in English in the 1960s, indigenous writing in Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the 1970s, and Black and Asian British Literature in the 1980s.