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    The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place

    Arnab Dutta Roy (Edited by), Paul Ugor (Edited by), Simone Maria Puleo (Edited by)

    9781496242648

    Hardback, published 1 January 2026

    322 pages, Index
    22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg

    "The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place is a vital addition to the field, proving that the genre has evolved far beyond the linear trajectory of European modernity."—Sevket Sarper Dörter, Global South Literary Studies

    “This collection masterfully redefines the postcolonial bildungsroman, intertwining the personal and collective struggles of individuals in spaces fraught with ecological degradation, social stagnation, and cultural upheaval. With great nuance, the contributors probe how youth identity, spatial politics, and ecological crises shape coming-of-age narratives, offering new perspectives on postcolonial studies. Essential reading for anyone interested in the intersections of space, culture, and power, this volume reimagines the possibilities of the bildungsroman in contemporary global contexts.”—Imre Szeman, director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation, and Sustainability at the University of Toronto Scarborough and coeditor of Power Shift: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy
    “Global in the scope of its content and the institutional locations of its contributors, this timely volume spotlights provocative and teachable chapters on the eco-bildung, spatial relations in coming-of-age narratives, and emergent postcolonial subjectivities. It effectively exploits the malleability of the genre to bring to light new screen media and literary texts and presents fresh analyses of well-known bildungsroman, such as Sara Sureli’s Meatless Days and the Apu trilogy of Satyajit Ray. Scholars and students will find The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place useful.”—Carmela Garritano, associate professor of international studies and Africana studies at Texas A&M University and author of African Energy Worlds in Film and Media

    In recent decades authors from across the world have adopted and adapted the bildungsroman literary genre to reflect on coming of age in postcolonial spaces and places. The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place emphasizes matters of space, place, and environment—concepts intrinsically linked to the bildungsroman’s processes of meaning-making and critique.

    From Latin America to South Asia to Africa, the contributors focus on three distinct but interrelated themes: ecology, cultural geography, and mediascapes. They consider aesthetic formations that address the themes of spatiality, youth, individual and collective experiences of social stagnation or growth, the unique challenges faced by certain global subjects on account of the places they inhabit, and whether or not futurity is guaranteed for them. This unique collection delves into myriad features of the postcolonial bildungsroman, enlarging our theoretical understanding of the genre as well as of media and literature in the postcolonial world.

    Acknowledgments
    Introduction: The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place
    Simone Maria Puleo, Paul Ugor, and Arnab Dutta Roy
    Part 1. Ecology and the Postcolonial Bildungsroman
    1. From the novela de formaciÓn to the Eco-Bildungsroman: Nature, Colonialism, and Extractive Capitalism in the Colombian Novel
    Francesco Di Bernardo
    2. The Environmental Bildungsroman: Metabolic Rift and Underdevelopment in Jan Carew’s Black Midas
    Gayathri Goel
    3. The House That Disfigured the Land: Ecological Decline and the Postcolonial Bildungsroman in Mexican Gothic
    Colleen Tripp
    Part 2. Cultural Geography of the Postcolonial Bildungsroman
    4. Speaking from the Ecotone: Approaching Decolonial Masculinities in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire SÁenz
    Joshua D. Martin
    5. Recontouring the Motherland through Female Sexualities: The Bildungsroman and Postcolonial Selfhoods in India
    Oindri Roy
    6. Queer Immigrant Bildungsroman: Trung Le Nguyen’s The Magic Fish
    Lan Dong and Tena L. Helton
    7. From India’s Northeast: Conflict, Crisis, and the Elusive Self in Malsawmi Jacob’s Zorami: A Redemption Song
    Dharmendra K. Baruah
    8. Reconstructing Women’s Identity in Pakistan: Transgenerational Testimony and the Introspective Self
    Ana Ashraf
    Part 3. Mediascape and the Postcolonial Bildungsroman
    9. Luminous Possibilities: Bildung, Bonheur, and Sissako’s Heremakono
    Jeffrey R. Di Leo
    10. Entangled Subjectivities: Activist Sovereignty Claims, Critical Media Literacies, and Legacies of the Postcolonial Bildungsroman
    Marie Lovrod
    11. The Personal Aesthetic and the Communitarian Ethic: Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar and the Postcolonial Bildungsroman
    Thomas Layman
    12. A Fan of Doom Metal, a Descendant of French Kings: Postcoloniality in Doom 94 by Jānis Joņevs
    Kārlis VērdiņŠ
    13. Coming of Age in a Hustler Economy: E-fraud Narratives and the Postcolonial African Bildungsroman
    Daniel Chukwuemeka
    Contributors
    Index

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