Reviews for Paradoxes of Postcolonial Culture: Contemporary Women's Writing of the Indian and AFro-Italian Diaspora

The average rating for Paradoxes of Postcolonial Culture: Contemporary Women's Writing of the Indian and AFro-Italian Diaspora based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-10-20 00:00:00 Barbara Spears Just finished rereading this wonderful account of late nineteenth-century Japanese literature with an explicitly feminist slant. We all know Ichiyō Higuchi (1872-1896), but here are the stories of her contemporaries: Miyake Kaho (1868-1944), Wakamatsu Shizuko (1864-1896), and Shikin Shimizu (1868-1933). Shikin saw clearly what was at stake: in 1888 she wrote, "The social question defining the nineteenth century is the question of women; the history of civilization in the nineteenth century is a history of the expansion of women's rights." (p. 165) Copeland shows the dilemma many Japanese women writers faced: If they attempted to move beyond the parameters of women's writing, they were rebuked for imitating men. If they conformed to those parameters, they were ignored for being feminine and thereby insignificant. (p. 5) And yet write they did, until tuberculosis (Ichiyō, Shizuko) or marriage (Kaho, Shikin) brought their careers to a premature end. In Shikin's case, for example: While [her husband] Yoshinao was in Europe, Shikin was expected to step into the void he had left in the household, thus giving her a breadth and freedom most wives did not enjoy. She had the time and, more important, the inclination to write. Once he returned, however, everything changed. Her sphere suddenly shrank while her duties within it multiplied. (p. 209) Some writers were physically robust enough that they did not contract TB; they also managed to endure a feckless husband and repeated childbearing--I'm thinking here of Akiko Yosano, of course. What--beside luck--made the difference? Such is the question that Copeland's still provocative book leaves me wondering.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-06-03 00:00:00 Kathryn Holley Wow, I am the first to rate and/or review the book. Well, it apparently does not lure crowds of readers and brings about melees in libraries so let me just introduce it. It is a collection of short stories aiming to capture emotions and traumas of a generation of Chinese soldiers and their nearest and dearest after being forced to leave the Chinese mainland for Taiwan, following the KMT army. Even though an uneducated Western reader may not fully grasp the cultural background, it is still an interesting reading. Most stories are slow-moving melancholic reminiscences, so typical of today`s Chinese literature.