Introduction

Abstract

Postcolonial Studies and Kipling have a curious symbiotic relationship. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), the foundational text in the field, renewed interest in Kipling as a representative Orientalist, who not only gave ‘imaginative perspectives’ to scholarly Orientalism, but also gave literary expression to ‘the White Man’, ‘an idea, a persona, a style of being’, which made it possible for the West to construct and take hold of the Orient (Said, 1995: 224, 226–7). This study was followed by the timely expiration of Kipling’s copyright in 1987, which led to the reprint of his major works as paperbacks, notably by Penguin and Oxford World’s Classics. Bart Moore-Gilbert’s Kipling and ‘Orientalism’ appeared in 1986. This attempt to re-evaluate Said’s framework through the reading of Kipling’s Anglo-Indian writing refers to Kipling as being placed at the centre of postcolonial debates (see, for instance, Williams, 1989). At the same time, Kipling became a key to understanding postcolonial literature, as many texts implicitly or explicitly engage with, and attempt to rewrite, Kipling.1 Thus Kipling, whose popularity declined with the demise of the British Empire, was resurrected as a canonical author in Postcolonial Studies. His work became a fertile ground for postcolonial scholars to test new theories.