Modernism in the Metrocolony
Urban Cultures of Empire in Twentieth-Century Literature

Compares twentieth-century literature from a network of British colonial cities, tracing a new, peripheral history of urban modernism.

Caitlin Vandertop (Author)

9781108835626, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 November 2020

280 pages
24 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.45 kg

'A welcome antidote to the myths of progress that have long persuaded us to like modernity more than we should.' Beci Carver, Times Literary Supplement

While literary modernism is often associated with Euro-American metropolises such as London, Paris or New York, this book considers the place of the colonial city in modernist fiction. From the streets of Dublin to the shop-houses of Singapore, and from the botanical gardens of Bombay to the suburbs of Suva, the monumental landscapes of British colonial cities aimed to reinforce empire's universalising claims, yet these spaces also contradicted and resisted the impositions of an idealised English culture. Inspired by the uneven landscapes of the urban British empire, a group of twentieth-century writers transformed the visual incongruities and anachronisms on display in the city streets into sources of critique and formal innovation. Showing how these writers responded to empire's metrocolonial complexities and built legacies, Modernism in the Metrocolony traces an alternative, peripheral history of the modernist city.

1. Metrocolonial modernism
2. Architectures of free trade in Conrad's Singapore
3. Synchronising empire time in Joyce's Dublin
4. Anglo-Indian crises of development
5. Ecologies of empire in Oceanian modernism
Conclusion: Mega-Dublins.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Modern & contemporary fiction [post c 1945 FA], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: post-colonial literature [DSBH5], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literature & literary studies [D]