Overview

The Retrospective Raj: Medicine, Literature & History After Empire undertakes a detailed analysis of the use of medicine as a recurrent and defining trope of post-imperial fiction published between 1950 and 1990. The book argues that during this crucial period of recent history, when the influence and prestige of the British Empire was nearing its end, a range of contemporary novelists including J. G. Farrell, Paul Scott, John Masters, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and Salman Rushdie identified and used medicine as a discursive paradigm through which to engage critically with the history, authority and legacy of the British Empire within their writing. Drawing on a range of literary and archival sources, this work explores the complex relationship between Britain, India and Empire through a medical lens, bringing together the concerns of literary study and medical history under an interdisciplinary and original methodological framework.

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9781474448741

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This absorbing study of post-war Anglo-Indian historical fiction examines the representation of medicine in its material aspects and metaphorical meanings in a detailed, perceptive reading of a select number of significant novels that implicitly articulate Britain's post-imperial condition. Goodman's timely book is an intelligent contribution to scholarship on post-war fiction, imperial nostalgia and the medical humanities.--Mariadele Boccardi, University of the West of England

Author Information

Sam Goodman, Associate Professor in English & Communication, Bournemouth University.

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