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Brian Crow, with Chris Banfield. An Introduction to PostColonial Theatre. Cambridge, Eng. /New York. Cambridge University Press. 1996. xiv + 186 pages. 30/$49.95. (11.95/$16.95 paper). ISBN 0-52149529-6 (56722-X paper) .
Seven authors are centered on in separate chapters: Derek Walcott (St. Lucia, but associated mainly with Trinidad/Tobago), Jack Davis (Australia), Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), Athol Fugard (South Africa), Badal Sircar (India), and Girish Karnad (India). "Centered on" only, because there is much other useful information. Sircar writes in Bengali (eighty million speakers), Karnad in Kannada (forty million), the other five in English. Since Australia, the United States, and South Africa are included, we extend post-colonial to countries that have not been colonies in the usual sense but which do have subordinate peoples. Chris Banfield wrote the chapters on Sircar and Karnad, Brian Crow the rest of the book.
The introduction goes deeply into Fanon on the mentality of the subjugated, for one thing pointing out that some anglophone post-colonials "prefer to compose in native tongues" while "others-such as Wole Soyinka and Derek Walcott-have preferred, whatever their sense of ambivalence about it, to write in the 'imperialist' language." I go along with the parti pris exemplified by these words throughout the present study, although where would the world be without Soyinka at its fingertips? And since Walcott's theater is a wonderful wedding of the Queen's and local Englishes-I dare say in approximation of how he himself can speak-what other preference could Walcott possibly have? Sartre's spirit hovers too over this chapter, whispering something like (shades of Black Orpheus) "The aim of post-colonialism is the destruction of neocolonialism."
It seems that Bruce King's Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama was published too late (1995; seeWLT 70:2, p. 450) to inform the opening Walcott chapter, which gives only a partial view of the St. Lucian's oeuvre, and of the dramatist himself, who has profited from a good deal of...