ABSTRACT
Although critics have commented on the elements of detective fiction in Michael Ondaatje’s 2000 novel Anil’s Ghost, the novel does not fit neatly within Christian’s guidelines as to what texts can be classified as postcolonial detective fiction. For example, the most traditional detective in the novel, Anil, is a diasporic figure who, though born in Sri Lanka, is perceived as an outsider by the other characters. What we could call her dominant “cultural attitude” is her identification with British and U.S. scientific and popular culture discourses, in particular her persistent faith in Enlightenment rationality, rather than any inherently “Sri Lankan” perception of the world. This worldview marginalizes her in interactions with other characters, but it is also a manifestation of her power as the representative of a transnational organization whose decisions will have direct repercussions for characters in a more marginal position than herself.1 Most importantly, Anil is only one of several protagonists in the novel, none of whom is entirely sympathetic and each of whom brings a different history and method to the novel’s story of detection.
