Introduction

The study of colonialism in relation to literature and of literature in relation to colonialism has opened up important new ways of looking at both. In the early twentieth century, V. I. Lenin and Karl Kautsky gave a new meaning to the word imperialism by linking it to a particular stage of the development of capitalism. It is the Leninist definition that allows some people to argue that capitalism is the distinguishing feature between colonialism and imperialism. One useful way of distinguishing between imperialism and colonialism might be to separate them not in temporal but in spatial terms and to think of imperialism or neo-imperialism as the phenomenon that originates in the metropolis, the process which leads to domination and control. Its result, or what happens in the colonies as a consequence of imperial domination is colonialism or neo-colonialism. The different understandings of colonialism and imperialism complicate the meanings of the term postcolonial.