Postcolonial Theory: An Overview

Abstract: In the field of cultural and literary studies, the role of literary theory cannot be over-emphasised. A Profound and immense gratitude to the intellectual efforts of Wolfgang Iser, who in How to Do Theory vividly justifies the dividing-line between the nature and functions of theories in the sciences, social sciences and the humanities. We read literary text through it, we understand the text-reader connection through its viewfinder. Through literary theory, we comprehend the author-text connection, the author-reader connection, as well as the text-context connection and much more. This paper focuses on postcolonial theory, which as Ato Quayson argues is a “child of postmodernism”. Although several, seminal books, articles and essays on this theory have been published over the years, this paper provides yet another simplification on what is known and popular about postcolonialism: its nature, the problems surrounding its definitions, its ancestral root, its subsequent development, the hyphenated and the unhyphenated versions of the term as well as it’s its basic principles or tenants.