Differential publics—reading (in) the postcolonial novel

Abstract

This essay discusses the activity of reading in three postcolonial novels from three different national contexts (Dangarembga in Zimbabwe, Kapur in India, and Adichie in Nigeria). The essay considers the scenes of focused, respectful, even canonical reading staged in these novels, alongside the more selective or eclectic “reading” and citation taking place at the level of the narration. On the basis of this contrast, it suggests that the postcolonial and transnational publics interpellated by the novels are sometimes different from the audiences or readers dramatized in the texts. It concludes by pointing to the particularly layered—at once deferential and exploratory—reading that is staged within, and by, the postcolonial novel. The essay is shaped by postcritical, cognitive, and hermeneutic approaches to narrative and reading drawn from Rita Felski, James Phelan, Dan Sperber, and Deirdre Wilson.