Postmodern philosophy of history and reading its traces in postcolonial (re)writing

Abstract

Presenting the outlines of the postmodern philosophy of historiography as it shapes the theoretical background for the analysis of the historical novel, this study aims to render that the recent understanding of history and its reconceptualization in decolonizing fictional (re)writings still provides the "re-visionary" stance seen in contemporary postcolonial narratives. After the introduction of postmodern innovations in theoretical and imaginative writing, there has emerged a rather newfangled view of the historical novel and an increasing inclination for narratives that attempt to reimagine historical moments and chronicles they integrate into their fictional worlds to pursue a re-visionary questioning. The critical frameworks of postcolonial historical fiction and speaking subalterns have moved on in postmillennial historical novels and political novels. Considering that postcolonial literary theories and fictional (re)writings attempt to deconstruct homogenous discourses and the Eurocentric (history) writing of the colonizer, it is claimed that, for the sake of textual decolonization, recent works of postcolonial historical writing intersect in several ways with the newfangled view of the historical novel.