eBook

The intimate empire : reading women's autobiography

Whitlock, Gillian

2000

Overview

By means of contextualized readings, this work argues that autobiographic writing allows an intimate access to processes of colonization and decolonization, incorporation and resistance, and the formation and reformation of identities which occurs in postcolonial space. The book explores the interconnections between race, gender, autobiography and colonialism and uses a method of reading which looks for connections between very different autobiographical writings to pursue constructions of blackness and whiteness, femininity and masculinity, and nationality. Unlike previous studies of autobiography which focus on a limited Euro American canon, the book brings together contemporary and 19th-century women's autobiographies and travel writing from Canada, the Caribbean, Kenya, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. With emphasis on the reader of autobiography as much as the subject, it argues that colonization and resistance are deeply embedded in thinking about the self.

• Publisher: Cassell,Continuum
• Subject: Authors / Autobiography / Autobiography -- Women authors / Colonies in literature / Commonwealth literature (English) / Commonwealth literature (English) -- Women authors -- History and criticism / Empires / English prose literature / English prose literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism / English prose literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism / Imperialism in literature / Intimacy / Literature / Prince, Mary. History of Mary Prince, a West Indian slave / Self in literature / Women / Women and literature / Women and literature -- Commonwealth countries -- History -- 19th century / Women and literature -- Commonwealth countries -- History -- 20th century / Writers
• ISBN: 9780304706006, 0304706000, 9780304705993, 0304705993