Introduction to the collection
Empire and Its Shadows
The canonical literature of empire -- and the counter-texts that answer it
Last updated: 19 April 2026 -- 1 of 8 published
Empire produced a literature. That literature told a story about civilisation, mastery, and the right to rule. Then the people who had been ruled wrote back.
This collection reads the canonical texts of empire alongside their counter-texts -- the novels, poems, and essays that answer, rewrite, or dismantle them. Robinson Crusoe beside Foe. The Stranger beside The Meursault Investigation. Heart of Darkness beside Wide Sargasso Sea. The point is not to cancel one side of the conversation but to hear both -- and to notice what happens when the person who was written about picks up the pen.
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Published
- Twenty-Eight Years on an Island -- Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719) The foundational myth of colonial enterprise: a man alone on an island, making the world his through labour and will. Friday arrives on page 174.
Coming Soon
- J. M. Coetzee: Foe (1986)
- Albert Camus: The Stranger (1942)
- Kamel Daoud: The Meursault Investigation (2013)
- Rudyard Kipling: Kim (1901)
- Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness (1899)
- E. M. Forster: A Passage to India (1924)
- Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
1 down. 7 to go. New posts every Sunday. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.
The Readings
51 books
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Twenty-Eight Years on an Island — Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe — Robinson Crusoe
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Crusoe Rewritten Through a Mouthless Friday — Foe
J. M. Coetzee — Foe
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The Arab With No Name — The Stranger
Albert Camus — The Stranger
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The Arab With No Name — The Stranger
Albert Camus — The Stranger (illustrated edition)
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Seventy Years Later, the Brother Writes Back — The Meursault Investigation
Kamel Daoud — The Meursault Investigation
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The Great Game as Boyhood Idyll — Kim
Rudyard Kipling — Kim
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The Bengali Nationalist Who Discovered He Was Irish — Gora
Rabindranath Tagore — Gora (illustrated edition)
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Prospero's Island, Caliban's Curse — The Tempest
William Shakespeare — The Tempest
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Caliban's Curse — A Tempest
Aimé Césaire — A Tempest
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I Had a Farm in Africa — Out of Africa
Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) — Out of Africa (illustrated edition)
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When the Priest Refused the Yam — Arrow of God
Chinua Achebe — Arrow of God
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The Club at Kyauktada — Burmese Days
George Orwell — Burmese Days (illustrated edition)
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The Love Laws of Ayemenem — The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy — The God of Small Things
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The Darkness Was Always Here — Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad — Heart of Darkness (illustrated edition)
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The World Is What It Is — A Bend in the River
V. S. Naipaul — A Bend in the River
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Not Yet, Not Here — A Passage to India
E. M. Forster — A Passage to India (illustrated edition)
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The Cracked Mirror Is the Method — Imaginary Homelands
Salman Rushdie — Imaginary Homelands
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The Caribbean in the Attic — Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë — Jane Eyre
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The Madwoman Had a Name — Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys — Wide Sargasso Sea
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Ten Million Dead, and the Documents Burned for Eight Days — King Leopold's Ghost
Adam Hochschild — King Leopold's Ghost
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The Last Fortress to Fall Is the Tongue — Decolonising the Mind
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o — Decolonising the Mind
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He Refused the Well-Made Postcolonial Novel and Wrote the Damage Instead — The House of Hunger
Dambudzo Marechera — The House of Hunger
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The House Always Holds Its Percentage — Pachinko
Min Jin Lee — Pachinko
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He Held His Own People to Account — The Home and the World
Rabindranath Tagore — The Home and the World
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The System Was Bad. The People Inside It Were Not Monsters. Both Are True. — The Raj Quartet
Paul Scott — The Raj Quartet
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The Empire Ended. The Clerk Kept the Receipts. — The Book of Disquiet
Fernando Pessoa — The Book of Disquiet
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The School Taught Him Dutch. The Court Taught Him Empire. — This Earth of Mankind
Pramoedya Ananta Toer — This Earth of Mankind
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Independence Came Home and Found the Marriage Bed Still Occupied. — So Long a Letter
Mariama Bâ — So Long a Letter
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Independence Arrived Before the Village Could Confess. — A Grain of Wheat
Ngugi wa Thiong'o — A Grain of Wheat
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The Empire Wrote Itself as Epic Before the Reckoning Began. — The Lusiads
Luis Vaz de Camoes — The Lusiads
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The Empire Left at Midnight. The Body Kept the Wounds. — Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie — Midnight's Children
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She Built a Tower to Keep the World Out. The Ancestors Were Already Inside. — The Bone People
Keri Hulme — The Bone People
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A Reasonable Paragraph — Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe — Things Fall Apart
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The Rubber in the Drawing Room — Howards End
E. M. Forster — Howards End
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The Magistrate's Clean Hands — Waiting for the Barbarians
J. M. Coetzee — Waiting for the Barbarians
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A Second's Worth of Reflex — Lord Jim
Joseph Conrad — Lord Jim
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The Devourer and the Law — Doña Bárbara
Rómulo Gallegos — Doña Bárbara
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A Heap of Stones — Pedro Páramo
Juan Rulfo — Pedro Páramo
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Writing in the Conqueror's Tongue — Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade
Assia Djebar — Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade
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The Diagnosis That Outlived the Doctor — The Wretched of the Earth
Frantz Fanon — The Wretched of the Earth
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The Book the Houseboy Wrote — Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — Half of a Yellow Sun
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The Woman Who Bricked Over the Door — A General Theory of Oblivion
José Eduardo Agualusa — A General Theory of Oblivion
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The Silver Wins — Nostromo
Joseph Conrad — Nostromo
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The Room You Cannot Enter — Kokoro
Natsume Sōseki — Kokoro
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The Lens You Cannot See Through — Orientalism
Edward Said — Orientalism
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The Thistle That Would Not Lie Down — Hadji Murat
Leo Tolstoy — Hadji Murat
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What the Settler Owes — Disgrace
J. M. Coetzee — Disgrace
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The City Where Empires Left Their Rubble — Snow
Orhan Pamuk — Snow
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The Empire's Chickens Come Home to Roost — White Teeth
Zadie Smith — White Teeth
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The Stones Still Hum — Deep Rivers
José María Arguedas — Deep Rivers
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The Accusation Needs No Crime — El Señor Presidente
Miguel Ángel Asturias — El Señor Presidente