Racist and Xenophobic Attitudes in English-Language Fiction by Authors of South-Asian Origin
Racist and Xenophobic Attitudes in English-Language Fiction by Authors of South-Asian Origin

Summary/Abstract: This article considers different types of racist and xenophobic attitudes asvpresented in some postcolonial novels written in English by authors of South-Asianvorigin, such as Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Meera Syal, Hanif Kureishi, HarivKunzru or Monica Ali. The causes include Darwinist explanations of skin colour and inferiority of the darker races, which constituted the basis for their colonial conquest by the white race (who had this "burden" to carry) to the postmodern cultural constructs of the Other as different and therefore dangerous. Several instances of implicit and explicit racist and xenophobic attitudes and actions as they appear in the novels are analysed, together with the types of response received, which ranges from exacerbation of religious attitudes to direct acts of terrorism.

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