The present volume contains general essays on: the relevance of ‘Commonwealth’ literature; the treatment of Dalits in literature and culture; the teaching of African literature in the UK; ‘sharing places’ and Drum magazine in South Africa; black British book covers as primers for cultural contact; Christianity, imperialism, and conversion; Orang Pendek and Papuans in colonial Indonesia; Carnival and drama in the anglophone Caribbean; issues of choice between the Maltese language and Its Others; and patterns of interaction between married couples in Malta. As well as these, there are essays providing close readings of works by the following authors: Chinua Achebe, André Aciman, Diran Adebayo, Monica Ali, Edward Atiyah, Margaret Atwood, Murray Bail, Peter Carey, Amit Chaudhuri, Austin Clarke, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Amitav Ghosh, Nadine Gordimer, Antjie Krog, Hanif Kureishi, Naguib Mahfouz, David Malouf, V.S. Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, Tayeb Salih, Zadie Smith, Ahdaf Soueif, Yvonne Vera.
Contributors: Jogamaya Bayer, Katrin Berndt, Sabrina Brancato, Monica Bungaro, Judith Lütge Coulli, Robert Cribb, Natasha Distiller, Evelyne Hanquart–Turner, Marie Herbillon, Tuomas Huttunen, Gen’ichiro Itakura, Jacqueline Jondot, Karen King–Aribisala, Ursula Kluwick, Dorothy Lane, Ben Lebdai, Lourdes López–Ropero, Amin Malak, Daniel Massa, Concepción Mengibar–Rico, Susanne Reichl, Brigitte Scheer–Schaezler, Lydia Sciriha, Jamie S. Scott, Andrea Strolz, Peter O. Stummer, Cynthia vanden Driesen, Clare Thake Vassallo.