The Empire Rows Back: The Postcolonial Utopia in Sharon Bala’s the Boat People

Proceedings of The 11th International Conference on Research in Behavioral and Social Sciences

Year: 2023

DOI:

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The Empire Rows Back: The Postcolonial Utopia in Sharon Bala’s the Boat People

Ginger, Ching-chih Wang

 

ABSTRACT: 

The paper will focus on the traumatic memory and the representation of extremism described in The Boat People (2018), a story about the Sri Lankan boat people created by the Asian Canadian female writer Sharon Bala. It can be seen as a touchstone for an empathetic interpretation of Asian Refugee Literature. In light of this, I attempt to configurate Bill Ashcroft’s “postcolonial utopianism” together with trauma theory to prove the reflexivity of the language postcolonialism uses to tackle citizenship in a world bombarded with turmoil and uncertainties.

keywords: Asian refugee literature, postcolonial utopianism, trauma theory, boat,people, Sharon Bala