In the heydays of the British Empire, in the late 19th and early 20th century, many women novelists wrote romantic adventure stories about female protagonists travelling to the colonies. The aim was to represent and foster female contribution to the cause of Britain’s expansionist and “civilizing” mission. Over seven decades have passed since the independence of India and the consequent demise of the British Empire. However, nostalgia for the “Raj,” as the Empire was known in the subcontinent, seems to be witnessing a resurgence in the form of romantic novels, which copy the style and format of their 19th century predecessors, typically narrating the story of a young female protagonist travelling from England to India to find a husband. Narrators of these historical romances often stick to the tried-and-tested formula of describing Indian landscapes, cultures and traditions the way they were done over a century ago. Interestingly, the genre’s financial success has also encouraged German authors to write similar books with similar plots and descriptions of formerly colonized countries. This paper tries to expose the imperial nostalgia implicit in these books by analysing representations of colonial space and colonial agency in them.
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Popular novels include some written immediately after the dissolution of the British Empire by authors like M.M. Kaye, whose Shadow of the Moon (1957) and The Far Pavilion (1978) were extremely well received and even made into Hollywood movies. In 1984, Valerie Fitzgerald’s Zemindar was similarly successful. Of late, romance authors are revisiting India’s colonial history as a backdrop for their novels. Latest works include The Exotic Heir (originally Love of my Life) by Meredith Bond (2013) in English, and Der Duft von Sandelholz by Laila al Omari (2012) and Der Himmelüber Darjeeling by Nicole Vosseler (2006) in German.
This paper analyses these books in two parts. First, I discuss how colonial landscape and life are brought into the (colonial) world through the protagonist/narrator’s descriptions, how these serve to highlight the difference between the colony and “home” (e.g. England) and consequently, how colonial agency plays out in these novels. Second, I aim to show how establishing the idea of “home,” i.e., the British nation and its superior moral and cultural values justifies the colonial occupation of territory. (101-102)
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