Abstract
The multilingualism of postcolonial life-writing brought new attention to how the self is situated within and between wider cultural frameworks not necessarily of one’s choosing, and a much sharper understanding of the relationship between language, identity and power. Yet at the same time, as various critics have been quick to observe, to emphasise non-translatable cultural differences is also to risk commodifying identity in a way that underlines (rather than transforms) historical legacies. This chapter explores the intricate and wide-ranging debates about language and identity that took place in this period between such figures as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Kamau Brathwaite, Grace Nichols, Wole Soyinka, Sally Morgan, Michelle Cliff, Daljit Nagra, Derek Walcott, V. S. Naipaul, and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.
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