Straddling the colonial past and the postcolonial present : postcolonial “Helplessness” in Jamal Mahjoub’s wings of dust

Abstract EN

This paper seeks to examine Jamal Mahjoub’sWings of Dust (1989) as one notable example of postcolonial paradigms of transcultural relations, domination, resistance, dislocations and relocations.

Throughout the novel, Mahjoub charts the predicament of his first person narrator as he straddles the line between his colonial past and postcolonial present.

Questions of identity, change, racial affiliations, diasporic exile, and Othering are brought to the limelight as Mahjoub maps out the psychological, political and cultural makeup of postcolonial consciousness.

Postcolonial criticism provides the lens through which the novel can be more insightfully read.