VOL. 2 OVERVIEW - POSTWAR AND POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE, 1965-1968

Postwar and Postcolonial Literature, 1965-1968

By the middle of the twentieth century, the United States and the Soviet Union (the world's superpowers) were locked into the Cold War; i.e., a stalemate between two sides that possessed enough fire power to destroy not just "the enemy" but the entire planet. This stalemate was the product of MAD: the tragicomical acronym for "mutually assured destruction."
Though the Cold War did not involve direct action between the superpowers in their home nations, the superpowers did wage war by proxy in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1955-75).
Though the Soviet Union was undergoing a process of de-Stalinization (i.e. ,trying to recover from Communist rule under Lenin and then Stalin), China (the world's other large Communist country) was going through a period of Stalin-like repression.
China's Cultural Revolution (under Mao Zedong) lasted from 1966 to 1976. It attacked intellectuals (among others), which had a drastic effect on Chinese art at the time.
During this period, many imperial colonies fought for, and gained, their independence. An era of writers thus emerged who had social, familial, and cultural ties to a colonial (or now postcolonial) nation, but who had been educated in, and now often appreciated, European artistic traditions.
Despite advances in food production and medicine, and despite growing prosperity in many developed nations, dire famine and poverty continued to exist in some underdeveloped nations (primarily in Africa and South Asia).
Because of its irreversible impact on the collective psyche of so much of the globe, the Second World War (and the Holocaust in particular) became a primary topic for many postwar artists.
The Second World War also exposed the lie of any argument based on "superiority" that traditional imperial powers once claimed, which led to often rapid (though violent) decolonization. In some cases, as colonies were granted independence, imperial powers imposed artificial boundaries between "nations" that produced immediate cultural tension and violence.
As colonial powers vacated their former colonies, civil wars occurred and often dictatorships emerged in a new grab for power.
The civil rights movement occurred in the United States as previously disenfranchised voices demanded equality.
The postwar period was a time characterized by great artistic diversity and hybridity: the mixing of traditions, genres, subjects, and styles.
This sense of mixed-ness in art reflects what was reality for many postcolonial artists: they come from mixed heritage, they learned from a mix of traditions, and their native homelands may have been ruled by a number of different powers (both colonial and indigenous). Thus, they sought to represent diversity in their work and to challenge long-held beliefs in the value of homogeneity and purity.