Role and function of a historical novel in a post colonial society

Cynthia McLeod

doi:10.18468/letras.2019v9n2.p105-111

Abstract

“In a nation where the people have no access to the sources of its history, the self image will be based on mythes and stereotypes”. This was one of the statements of the famous historian Barbara Tuchman in her PHD “A distant Mirror”, in 1978.

Highlights

“In a nation where the people have no access to the sources of its history, the self image will be based on mythes and stereotypes”
Let me first tell you something about Suriname, which is Brazil’s small neighbor in the North and the youngest country on the South American continent. In this former Dutch colony, the modern population consists of descendants of Africans who were brought as slaves and people from other continents, just like many other Caribbean countries
The 300.000 enslaved Africans who were brought to the country had a diversity of mothertongues and in Suriname a language developed which was spoken amongst them; first as pidgin but gradually this language became the mother tongue of the slaves born in Suriname

Summary

Introduction

“In a nation where the people have no access to the sources of its history, the self image will be based on mythes and stereotypes”. In this former Dutch colony, the modern population consists of descendants of Africans who were brought as slaves and people from other continents, just like many other Caribbean countries.

Results

Conclusion