Games of Identity and Alterity in the novels of Salman Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul

Ms Emilia Ivancu’s study is as delightful as it is serious. It offers a complex view of the main characteristics of postcolonial literature, powerfully marked by the works of Salman Rushdie and V. S. Naipaul and a very deep understanding of the relation between a character and his/her self, between the self and the Other, and also between the self and the world. The approach is multidisciplinary, and the texts are analysed from a multi-layered comparative perspective, which manages to produce a solid paradigm for the correct evaluation of this type of fiction.Ms Ivancu has read an impressive number of reference books necessary for a thorough understanding of the singular position of the postcolonial writer and of the problems of subjectivity in his relation to the Other and the world: works of postcolonial theory (Raymond Williams, H. Bhabha, Edward Said etc.), modern studies in psychology, sociology and anthropology (Foucault, Lefebvre, Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and others). Based on their ideas, she forged a coherent and expressive critical discourse, of exemplary rigurosity, but refreshingly original at the same time. (Virgil Stanciu)