Visitants
London
:
Secker and Warburg
,
1979
Z314711
1979
single work
novel
(taught in 1 units)
Set in 1959 in the Trobriand Islands off the east coast of Papua, Visitants depicts a colonial outpost a few years away from independence, in which the white characters occupy a position of uneasy authority over the indigenous Islanders. The novel exposes the failures of communication between the two cultures, heightened by the inclusion of the well-documented sightings of four human figures in a disc-shaped craft in the sky above Boianai in June 1959. The narrative documents the psychic disintegration of another visitant, the white Patrol Officer Alistair Cawdor, who loses his ability to relate to other human beings, dreaming instead of contact with the star-people in the Boianai flying saucer. The parallel story of the islanders traces an adroit political coup against the ageing Paramount Chief, carried out under the cover of a cargo cult uprising.' Anthony J. Hassall 'Foreword ' (October 2002): x., Visitants (2003).
Ficciones, Borges
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Lalami
Invitation to a Beheading, Nabokov
The Metamorphosis, Kafka
The Routledge Companion to World Literature, D'Haen
The Wandering Falcon, Ahmad
The Woman in the Dunes, Abe
Tokyo Cancelled, Dasgupta
Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys
This unit traces the growth of World Literature from a European idea to a global phenomenon including some of the most exciting books ever written from Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and the Americas. Focusing on the novel in English and in translation, from the early 20th into the 21st century, it enables students to extend their knowledge of literature and literary history in the context of global change. Focusing on migrancy, mobility, displacement and dislocation, the unit explores ways of reading across borders and that challenge ideas of "local" and "national" belonging. It explores how literature is produced and how it circulates in a global economy, as well as how it changes through time and space, both real and virtual.
