Includes bibliographical references (p. 449-487) and index.

Preliminary Material -- INTRODUCTION -- ILLITERACY AS A THEORETICAL ANATHEMA -- IN THE HUMANITIES: TABOOED -- IN LITERARY STUDIES: IGNORED -- ILLITERACY AS A LITERARY THEME -- ILLITERACY IN EARLIER FICTION -- ILLITERACY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY FICTION: HEART OF DARKNESS -- THE NON-LITERATEWITHOUT: UNLETTERED CALIBANS IN DISTANT EUROPE -- UNEARTHING THE PRE-LITERATEMIND: WILLIAM GOLDING’S THE INHERITORS -- PROJECTIONS OF A POST-LITERATEMIND: ANGELA CARTER’S HEROES AND VILLAINS -- POSTCOLONIAL RETURNS TO A PRE-LITERATE EUROPE: DAVID MALOUF’S AN IMAGINARY LIFE AND GILLIAN BOURAS’ APHRODITE AND THE OTHERS -- THE NON-LITERATE IN SIGHT: THE UNLETTERED NATIVE IN CONTACT NARRATIVES -- EARLY CONTACTS IN FICTIONAL AFRICA -- BUT A GLIMPSE IN THE REAR VIEWMIRROR: THE UNINTELLIGIBLE NATIVE IN GRAHAM GREENE’S THE HEART OF THE MATTER -- ARRIVALS ON A BICYCLE: THE UNINTELLIGIBLE COLONIST IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART -- MEETING IN THE DESERT: MIRAGES OF LITERATE AND NON-LITERATE BARBARITIES IN J.M. COETZEE’S WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS -- LATER CONTACTS IN NEW ZEALAND AND NORTH AMERICA -- ISLANDS OF PRELITERATE ORALITY: LOUISE ERDRICH’S LOVE MEDICINE AND PATRICIA GRACE’S POTIKI -- THE NON-LITERATEWITHIN: ESTABLISHED FORMS OF NON-LITERACY IN LITERATE CULTURES -- ILLITERACY FORGED BY THE INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM -- THE OUTCASTE’S LONGING TO LEARN: MULK RAJ ANAND’S UNTOUCHABLE -- LEARNING TO BELONG TO THE OUTCASTES: SALMAN RUSHDIE’S MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN -- BLACK ILLITERACY FORGED BY SLAVERY AND RACISM -- THE LURE OF WHITE LITERACY: RICHARD WRIGHT’S BLACK BOY -- RESISTINGWHITE LITERACY: TONIMORRISON’S BELOVED -- FORGING A BLACK LITERACY: SAPPHIRE’S PUSH AND ERNEST J. GAINES’ ALESSON BEFORE DYING -- THE ILLITERATE RETURNED: ILLITERACY IN MIGRANT LITERATURE -- THE ILLITERATEMOTHER: MAXINE HONG KINGSTON’S THE WOMAN WARRIOR -- THE ILLITERATE DAUGHTER: JOY KOGAWA’S OBASAN -- GENERATIONS OF ILLITERACY: AMY TAN’S THE BONESETTER’S DAUGHTER -- CLOSING REMARKS -- BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX -- INDEX.

Available to subscribing member institutions only.

Public debates on the benefits and dangers of mass literacy prompted nineteenth-century British authors to write about illiteracy. Since the early twentieth century writers outside Europe have paid increasing attention to the subject as a measure both of cultural dependence and independence. So far literary studies has taken little notice of this. The Non-Literate Other: Readings of Illiteracy in Twentieth-Century Novels in English offers explanations for this lack of interest in illiteracy amongst scholars of literature, and attempts to remedy this neglect by posing the question of how writers use their literacy to write about a condition radically unlike their own. Answers to this question are given in the analysis of nineteen works featuring illiterates yet never before studied for doing so. The book explores the scriptlessness of Neanderthals in William Golding, of barbarians in Angela Carter, David Malouf, and J.M. Coetzee, of African natives in Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe, of Maoris in Patricia Grace and Chippewas in Louise Erdrich, of fugitive or former slaves and their descendants in Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, and Ernest Gaines, of Untouchables in Mulk Raj Anand and Salman Rushdie, and of migrants in Maxine Hong Kingston, Joy Kogawa, and Amy Tan. In so doing it conveys a clear sense of the complexity and variability of the phenomenon of non-literacy as well as its fictional resourcefulness.