Subject to Colonialism

“Learned, lucid, critically self-conscious; recommended to all undergraduate and graduate libraries.” - K. Tölölyan , Choice

"[A] scholarly, judicious, and sometimes audacious book. . . . I hope Subject to Colonialism is a harbinger of new thinking in literary and post-colonial studies."

- Herbert S. Lewis , American Ethnologist

"[A]n outstanding feature of Subject to Colonialism is a self-reflexivity that insists on marking the limits of its theoretical approaches. . . . Although Africanists will read Desai for his study of cultural anthropologies in their relations to the construction of colonial subjectivities, Subject to Colonialism should interest all postcolonialists for its significant contribution to broad epistemological concerns." - Kevin Hickey, Interventions

"Gaurav Desai has written a very good first book, full of thought-provoking insights. . . . Desai’s argument is persuasive. . . . [Subject to Colonialism’s] insights make it worth the attention of scholars interested in the history of anthropology and colonialism. . . ." - Timothy Cleaveland , International Journal of African Historical Studies

"This book locates itself at the intersection of several disciplines, utilizing different modes of inquiry, most of which Gaurav Desai commands with fluency. . . . [A]t ease with and effective in articulating excellent theoretical principles. . . . [T]he book has a remarkably ambitious reach of geographical and disciplinary scope that is wholly admirable." - Susan Andrade, Research in African Literatures

"This study . . . makes a significant contribution to the ongoing critique of the colonial archive, and to the theorization of African self-fashioning in and through language." - Olakunle Goerge , Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

“A thoroughly original work. Subject to Colonialism establishes Desai as a new authority in the study of African letters and thought across the twentieth century.” - David William Cohen, author of The Combing of History

“Gaurav Desai has adopted in this study an original and productive approach to postcolonial literature by situating the discursive practices generated by the colonial encounter in a more comprehensive perspective than is usually offered in studies of this kind.” - F. Abiola Irele, Ohio State University

“With its unassuming honesty, clarity of style, and fine balance of argument and information—virtues not often displayed in ‘postcolonial’ writing—this book is bound to find the readers it deserves beyond the narrow circle of the experts and the converted.” - Johannes Fabian, University of Amsterdam