ABSTRACT
Walsh, William, Commonwealth Literature, London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1973 The surge of nationalism in the colonies of European powers after World War II was
both a political and a literary phenomenon, as people agitating for decolonisation recognised, from imperial examples, the role of literature in the management of reality. Within the former British Empire, these new literatures were first studied as “Commonwealth literature”. With increasing translation of works from other languages into English, the term “New Literatures in English” (or “New English Literatures”) came into use. The current trend is to study them within the wider context of post-colonial studies.
