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Michael Pearson , Nigel Worden , Claire Chambers , Anmole Prasad , Nicky Marsh , Jenny
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 Reviews
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should be considered as really Even before this, early in the twentieth

HISTORY OF THE autonomous compared with the
Mediterranean one. Obviously not: it
century many European authorities
considered the Indian Ocean as only a

INDIAN OCEAN: was scarcely more than an extension

of the eastern Mediterranean. (218)
‘half ocean’ as it did not extend far into
the Northern Hemisphere!
Even books which claimed to focus
A REVIEW ESSAY Later, he noted ‘The false concept
on the Indian Ocean were often merely
studies aiming to glorify British
of unity in the Indian Ocean’ (ibid).
Michael Pearson Furthermore a recent discussion in
imperialism. The first major attempt at
an historical survey of the ocean, by
the very prestigious and widely read,
Auguste Toussaint, History of the Indian
American Historical Review was guilty, in
Ocean (1966), while at least putting the
In a much-quoted cautionary statement, 2006, of a major sin of omission. An
ocean on the academic agenda, was full
the great historian of the Mediterranean, important introduction by Karen Wigen
of errors and tended to overemphasise
Fernand Braudel, wrote that ‘A historical to the symposium ‘Oceans of History’
the role of Europeans. However, his
study centred on a stretch of water was followed by analyses of the
stress on the role of islands was a
has all the charms but undoubtedly Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the
Pacific. Curious indeed that the Indian welcome one. Satish Chandra’s
all the dangers of a new departure’
Ocean was ignored. Could the reason be collection, The Indian Ocean:
(vol. 1 19). Undaunted, over the last
that for most of its history the Indian Explorations in History, Commerce and
few years there have been a host of new
Ocean was crossed and used by people Politics (1987), contained many
publications on the Indian Ocean. This
from its littorals, not by Europeans, important, albeit disparate, studies.
essay addresses some of the most
unlike the three examples chosen Even more recent work has some curious
recent work published in English, while
by Wigen? This complaint about a gaps. K N Chaudhuri’s two overviews,
also mentioning a few older works which
Eurocentric approach applies, to an Trade and Civilisation in the Indian
have some standing as seminal or
extent, to a very recent book edited by Ocean (1985) and Asia before Europe
foundational texts dealing specifically
Wigen, with Jerry H Bentley and Renate (1990), the second a rather self-
with the Indian Ocean.
Bridenthal, Seascapes: Maritime History, indulgent work, left out Africa. This has,
Our ocean has had to struggle to get
Littoral Cultures and Transoceanic of course, been much commented on,
its place in the academic world. For
Exchanges (2007), where again the and will be of concern to readers of
many years it was hampered by vestiges
Indian Ocean is mostly absent and Wasafiri. The neglect of Africa has,
of Eurocentrism. Pierre Chaunu, the
European and American controlled however, been rectified to an extent by
erstwhile great authority on the Atlantic,
oceans and subjects are privileged. Rene Barendse, myself and published
wrote about
Indeed, this Eurocentric bias goes back and forthcoming work from Pedro
a long way. Braudel’s study of the Machado.1 There is also the important
the problem of whether this universe of Mediterranean was notoriously weak on initiative from the University of the
Arab navigation [in the Indian Ocean] the southern, Islamic, shore of the sea. Witwatersrand, from where a new

Wasafiri Vol. 26, No. 2 June 2011, pp. 78
99

ISSN 0269-0055 print/ISSN 1747-1508 online # 2011 Wasafiri
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 Reviews 79

collection, Eyes Across the Water: frontiers of the sea, depending on the Ocean: A History of People and the
Navigating the Indian Ocean (2010), matter under discussion; sometimes Sea, by the late K McPherson (1993)
edited by Pamila Gupta, Isabel Hofmeyr when we write the history of an ocean and my own The Indian Ocean (2003
and myself, gives some indication of we have to go far inland, other times and and 2007) which received a Roundtable
what can be done. topics not. He also usefully reminded us review in The International Journal of
that these boundaries ‘pulse’ and are Maritime History (IJMH) in 2004. At the
not fixed over time. An important very least these foundational studies
advantage is that we can, by studying have provided a framework which can be
the Indian Ocean, avoid the formerly rectified or expanded by others. Three
dominant hegemony or tyranny of Area important earlier works have been
Studies (see Andaya). In the United usefully collected in a work called
States after the Second World War, Maritime India (2004), edited by Sanjay
Eurocentrism was rectified to an extent Subrahmanyam, including McPherson’s
by the funding of Area Studies The Indian Ocean. I recently published a
programmes, focusing for example on collection of past pieces in 2005 and in
South or Southeast Asia, the USSR or 2006 Sugata Bose wrote a stunning
Sub-Saharan Africa. While this had the analysis of the last two centuries in
commendable advantage of turning A Hundred Horizons: The Indian
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more attention to the non-European Ocean in the Age of Global

world (and even this terminology is Empire.
objectionable, for it makes ‘Europe’ Connections across the ocean tend
the default category), it still imposed to show that there is a unity of sorts.
straitjackets on what could be studied.
Some of these are discussed in Ray and
One could compare two areas within
Alpers’ edition, Cross Currents and
Africa, but not two related areas if
Community Networks: Encapsulating the
one was in Africa and one in India.
Several authors have wrestled with History of the Indian Ocean World
Casablanca and Zanzibar were
what is considered to be a vexed (2007). Several have looked at Islam,
considered to be capable of being
question */ ‘boundaries’ of the ocean. quite appropriately, as an important
compared, but not Mombasa and Cochin
The southern boundary is usually characteristic of nearly all the coasts of
(Gilbert 12
/13).
considered to go down to the Great the Indian Ocean is that they follow the
This in turn relates to nomenclature.
Southern Ocean, forty degrees south. shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence.
The very term Indian Ocean privileges
Then again, there is a clear distinction Two outstanding examples of works
India. While many of us have indeed
between the monsoon Indian Ocean, which look at Islamic networks are by
seen India as the fulcrum or centre of
down to about ten degrees south, and the Anne Bang (Sufis and Scholars of the
the ocean (see Das Gupta and Pearson),
waters below this. At the western end, Sea: Family Networks in East Africa,
this still needs to be argued more
Cape Agulhas is geographically the end coherently, perhaps with an attempt at a 1860
/1925 published in 2003) and
of the ocean, but this excludes Cape statistical discussion of movements of Engseng Ho (The Graves of Tarim:
Town, just to the west; yet as Nigel goods and people, to show how much Genealogy and Mobility across the
Worden (in Ray and Alpers) and many oceanic history actually had anything at Indian Ocean published in 2006). Other
others have stressed, Cape Town is a all to do with India. The title prejudges useful Islamic-oriented works include
hinge between the Atlantic and the Indian the matter; better to use more correct, my Pious Passengers: The Hajj in Earlier
Oceans and cannot be solely allocated to albeit unwieldy, terms. The concept of Times (1994), Parkin and Headley’s
either. If this were not complicated Eurasia has been fruitful, and maybe collection on prayer, Islamic Prayer
enough, the boundaries in Southeast then we should refer to the Afrasian Sea, across the Indian Ocean: Inside and
Asia are inchoate in the extreme. How far thus firmly putting Africa back in. It must Outside the Mosque (2000) and a new
into Indonesia does our ocean go? All also be noted that the western ocean important book by a senior Zanzibari
the way to the South China Sea? And has a much richer historiography than historian, Abdul Sheriff, Dhow Cultures
what of Australia? What has been the role does the eastern one and few studies of the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism,
of the Island Continent in our ocean?2 have followed on from Om Prakash and Commerce and Islam published in 2010.
We are by now well aware of the Denys Lombard’s collection, Commerce The work by Kerry Ward also provides
hazards of the Myth of Continents, and and Culture in the Bay of Bengal, a most intelligent discussion of the
we need to consider equally the Myth of 1500
/1800, published in 1999. whole network concept and its uses.3
Oceans. Oceanic boundaries are even Two recent overviews have set out Along the same lines, the senior
more flexible than land ones. Braudel broad descriptions of the ocean and at historian of India, Tom Metcalf, recently
reminded us that there are a hundred least suggest ways forward: The Indian wrote a fine study which noted that
 80 Reviews

‘The Raj comprehended the sea as well 145). In other words, it is the same social Anthropologists have made
as the land’ (9). space as found on land, but being important contributions, especially in an
Two of the works included in miniature the ship is more concentrated excellent collection by Edward Simpson
Maritime India are trade histories, and or compacted and the deferential space and Kai Kresse, Struggling with History:
indeed until recently such work, between master and servant is reduced. Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the
especially for the early modern period, All this, however, is very tentative; we Western Indian Ocean (2008) and both
dominated the field.4 Rene Barendse’s need to know much more about people of these scholars have also recently
two books (see published in 2002 and on ships and here again comparison is produced their own monographs:
2009) have much on trade, but also important. As just one example, Marcus (respectively) Muslim Society and the
contain a host of data on the Arabian Rediker’s provocative work on the Western Indian Ocean: The Seafarers of
Sea in the seventeenth and eighteenth Atlantic, Between the Devil and the Deep the Kachchh (2009) and Philosophising
centuries. More recently there has been Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam and
a pronounced and very welcome and the Anglo-American Maritime World Intellectual Practices on the Swahili
broadening of geographical sensitivities (1987) could help us ask different Coast (2007). Pamila Gupta has also
and the notion of a distinctive littoral questions about people sailing our contributed to anthropological studies
society has been put forward for ocean. and one of her pieces very usefully
discussion (see Pearson, ‘Littoral There are several more focussed interrogates the role of islands (in
Society’; Horton and Middleton). The areas of research. Piracy studies make Gupta, Hofmeyr and Pearson; Ghasarian
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coasts are seen as fungible, so that one up an important sub-field for oceanic in Moorthy and Jamal, and also Vaidik).
can write an amphibious history which studies. The best work seems to be This is a subject at the heart of literary
moves easily between land and sea. coming from our near neighbour, that is and cultural studies, but is so far little
the South China Sea,6 but there have discussed in specific relation to broader
been some useful India-focussed trends in Indian Ocean studies.
studies also. Again, Rediker’s work on Literary studies, really combined
the Atantic, Villains of All Nations: with cultural studies tendencies, have
Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age only just begun to appear. Yet this area
(2004), can give us some pointers. Port will undoubtedly flourish soon, inspired
cities are another sub-genre which for possibly by several important
many years was enriched by the work of collections which only deal in part with
Frank Broeze. More recent work includes our ocean: Bernhard Klein’s Fictions of
an excellent study of Cochin by Pius the Sea: Critical Perspectives on the
Malekandathil, Portuguese Cochin and Ocean in British Literature and Culture
the Maritime Trade of India, 1500
/1663 (2002), Sea Changes: Historicizing the
(2001), a new collection from Jawaharlal Ocean, edited by Klein and Gesa
Nehru University, edited by Yogesh Mackenthun (2004) and Helen
Sharma, Coastal Histories: Society and Rozwadowski’s Fathoming the Ocean:
Ecology in Pre-Modern India (2010), The Discovery and Exploration of the
splendid studies of medieval Aden, Deep Sea (2005). Examples have already
Roxani Margariti’s Aden and the Indian appeared. Among them are Meg
Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Samuelson and Shaun Viljoen’s
Medieval Arabian Port (2007) and ‘Oceanic Worlds/Bordered Worlds’ and
Mocha, Nancy Um’s The Merchant Devleena Ghosh and Stephen Muecke’s
Even more aquatic are a few studies Houses of Mocha: Trade & Architecture Cultures of Trade: Indian Ocean
of the ship as a social space and the in an Indian Ocean Port (2009), and an Exchanges both published in 2007. A
extent to which this reflects or modifies attractive and lavish work edited by very recent addition, with an excellent
terrestrial society and social science Lakshmi Subramanian, Ports, Towns, introduction, is Moorthy and Jamal’s
models.5 But it may be that an attempt Cities: A Historical Tour of the Indian edited collection, Indian Ocean Studies:
to find a distinctive maritime society is Littoral (2008). Cultural, Social, and Political
to make an artificial distinction. Perhaps Slaves are another relatively discrete Perspectives (2010). Other literary work
a ship-bound society is merely a landed field and one where there is a very rich includes Stephanie Jones’ ‘Merchant-
one which has taken to sea and is in no literature. Here the most recent work is kings and Everymen’ in Journal of East
way sui generis. Conrad wrote ‘the ship, being done by Pedro Machado (in African Studies (2007), recent
a fragment detached from the earth’, Campbell, The Structure of Slavery) and publications by Isabel Hofmeyr (in
while Gesa Mackenthun similarly three very prolific scholars: Richard Samuelson and Viljoen, and Gupta,
claimed that ‘Ships are miniature Allen, Gwyn Campbell and Edward A Hofmeyr and Pearson) and a
geographies’ (Klein and Mackenthun Alpers. forthcoming text by Mark Ravinder Frost,
 Reviews 81

Enlightened Empires: New Literati in the and, like Kerry Ward, promotes the We can learn much from how other
Indian Ocean World, 1870
/1920. Related importance of network theory to future scholars have written about their
to this is the notion of the Indian Ocean studies. oceans, though I have no intention of
as a public space,7 while Stephanie A foundational question for any trying to cover the vast historiography of
Jones is now working on intersections study focusing on a body of water is to either the Mediterranean, the Pacific or
between literary and legal texts (see her consider whether seas are legitimate the Atlantic. Here are just a few selective
‘Colonial to Post-Colonial Ethics’). objects of academic inquiry. Karen comments. Matt Matsuda in his survey
Wigen may have left out our ocean, but of writings on the Pacific wrote that
her reflections on maritime history
generally need to be taken on board. In
The approach here is to underscore
one of her provocative introductions to
small islands, large seas, and multiple
collections about maritime studies, she transits */ not to concentrate on the
sets out the alternatives: crudely, either continental and economic ‘Rim’ powers
maritime studies secede from the land of East and Southeast Asia and the
and go it alone, or more modestly they Americas to define the Pacific, but to
at least, when given their due, modify propose an oceanic history much more
and enrich traditional social sciences: located in thinking outward from
Islanders and local cultures.’ (‘Oceans
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Most current categories of social of History’ 759)

analysis were initially developed to
understand land-based societies . . . will
ocean histories yield new constructs and To an extent we have been trying to do
new metanarratives to frame our social this already for the Indian Ocean and
imaginations? Or will their value lie here again non-historians have often led
rather in replacing such fixed categories the way. The other Pacific historian who
in favor of discrepant temporalities and has much to tell us is Greg Dening; his
amphibious identities?’ (in Bentley insistence that space, or rather the lack
et al 17) of it, on board the ship is crucial (in
What is the way forward for the Klein and Mackenthun).
humanities? Three authors have recently Turning to the Atlantic, I have
made some suggestions. Sanjay Is there, or can there be, a distinctive already noted the important work of
Subrahmanyam wrote, in Maritime India, maritime history? The introduction to an Marcus Rediker and of course the
that ‘it is increasingly clear that the new edited collection, Sea Changes, historiography on Atlantic slavery is
frontier is in terms of material histories produced a strong statement that the much richer than that for the Indian
that will largely be accessible through sea does have a history. The editors, Ocean. An entrée to some of the recent
archaeology’ (xvii). Certainly, Bernhard Klein and Gesa Mackenthun, work on the Atlantic can be found in
archaeology has much to offer the claim that all the essays in their book Isaac Land’s useful review essay, ‘Tidal
historian, especially those working on ‘take issue with the cultural myth that Waves: The New Coastal History’ and a
the Swahili coast, but I do think we have the ocean is outside and beyond history, new overall evaluation from Greene and
had far too much emphasis on ‘material that the interminable, repetitive cycle of Morgan, Atlantic History: A Critical
history’ already, so that this purported the sea obliterates memory and Appraisal (2009). Alison Game made an
way forward really offers us little that is temporality’. Furthermore, that a ‘fully important and relevant point when she
new. Markus Vink has written an historicized land somehow stands wrote that
excellent overview, ‘Indian Ocean diametrically opposed to an atemporal,
Studies and the ‘‘New Thalassology’’’ in ‘‘ahistorical’’, sea’ (2). Certainly, we
the Atlantic history that many historians
the Journal of Global History (2007). As a should give the aquatic part of the globe
produce is rarely centered around the
way forward, he usefully advocates more of a role within our world histories, ocean, and the ocean is rarely relevant
using ‘people’ as an organising but can we (or should we) go further, as to the project. Horden and Purcell8 point
principle. Another possibility is an hinted above, and ignore the land to the difference between history in and
analysis of particular commodities. He altogether? Should we aim to produce history of the Mediterranean. For Atlantic
notes that too much Indian Ocean ‘an alternative set of social categories’ history, the relevant distinction is
history has focussed on external which grow out of the sea and may have between a history of places around the
agencies, but he would like one which nothing to do with existing terrestrial Atlantic versus a history of the Atlantic.
emphasises local agency described from paradigms? My guess is that, at least at Of the former, there is an abundance. Of
within. Sebastian Prange’s essay present, it is not possible to abstract the the latter, there are far fewer examples.
provides another very useful overview, sea from the land. (‘Oceans of History’ 745)
 82 Reviews

The eminent southeast Asian historian, Matvejevic writes, ‘Estuaries are of a ocean. Sugata Bose’s brilliant overview
Barbara Andaya made a strong plea for dual nature: they let the river flow into of the last two centuries, A Hundred
more on maritime matters in Asian the sea, and they let the sea make its Horizons, challenges us, but we have
history generally: ‘an understanding of way inland’ (67). Maybe we should avoid not yet really come to terms with the
the ocean and of how it shaped the lives sketching extreme binaries and instead impact of ‘globalisation’ on our ocean.
of real people may open up new think of the fungibility of the coasts. Strategic studies will soon have to take
perspectives on the intertwined histories This stress on the ocean as a account of the decline of American
that should be integral to our projection corridor, a link, a unifier of scattered power worldwide, the increasing role of
of ‘‘Asia’’’ (685). littoral areas and port cities, does raise a the Indian navy, not restricted only to
more general problem: are these aquatic the Indian Ocean, and the likelihood of
connections qualitatively different from Chinese naval adventurism, or at least
those across land, say Berlin to Paris, or activity. We will also find more studies
Ahmadabad to Delhi, or Johannesburg to on the decline of fish stocks, a decline
Durban? Is the ‘tanning of travel’ already catastrophic in other oceans.
acquired by those going overland And the final gloomy story to be written
different from those going over the sea? will look at increasing exploitation of the
Can we show that a decisive number of seas for oil and minerals which, along
people travel over the oceans as with climate change, threatens to
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compared with the land, and more change the oceans in most fundamental
important are they profoundly affected and detrimental ways. One scenario
/
and changed by this aquatic experience, more and more pollution, especially
or are oceans merely places one passes from oil spills
/ may mean we have no
over to get to another bit of land, in ocean left to study. But with climate
other words voids analogous to the air change and the consequent rising sea
planes fly through? And if we insist that levels we may find, on the contrary, that
the sea is not a void, but rather has a there is too much ocean.
history, or at least can contribute to
history, does this mean that we can Notes
write not only maritime history but also, 1 See, for example, Barendse, The
by analogy, aerial history? Arabian Seas; Pearson, Port Cities
One can concentrate on smaller The Indian Ocean world, if indeed and Intruders; and Machado, ‘Cloths
parts of the ocean */ the Bay of Bengal, there is such a thing, is notoriously of a New Fashion’.
the Arabian Sea. Another important diverse. Over forty states today, many 2 For a more detailed discussion of
division is that set out by a geographer, languages, cultures, religions, these questions see the entries by
Philip Steinberg. In his much quoted topographies and a vast body of Goodall, Ranjan and Kull in Moorthy
book he writes that the sea consists of histories, often difficult to access. No and Jamal, Indian Ocean Studies.
two regions: person can hope to master all this. 3 See Ward’s Networks of Empire and
Obviously, the need is for collaboration, the Roundtable on Networks, with a
One region, the coastal zone, is like land especially between people with different response by Ward to reviews. There
in that it is susceptible to being claimed, language skills. Then, in a decade or so is also a useful discussion in Prange,
controlled, regulated, and managed by maybe some latter day Braudel will ‘Scholars and the Sea’.
individual state-actors. In the other synthesise what I hope will be a vast 4 Recent examples include: Lombard
region, the deep sea, the only necessary and Aubin, Asian Merchants and
body of new and provocative work.
(or even permissible) regulation is that Businessmen; Prakash, Bullion for
We also need a better coverage of
which ensures that all ships will be able Goods; Das Gupta, The World of the
different historical periods. There are
to travel freely across its vast surface. Indian Ocean Merchant; and,
many detailed studies of the period
(115) forthcoming, Prakash, The Trading
before the arrival of Europeans (Ray
World of the Indian Ocean,
2003; Margariti, Aden; Chakravarti in 1500
/1800.
Are there then two Indian Oceans, one Subramanian; and Chakravarti in 5 See ‘Story of the Voyage’, edited by
pelagic, the other littoral or benthic? Or Prakash, The Trading World) and the Titlestad and Gupta, in both English
are there more? Does the ocean include vexed matter of violence at sea is being Studies in Africa 51.2 (2008) and
other places: port cities; islands; the reconsidered (Margariti ‘Mercantile South African Historical Journal 61.4
hinterlands and/or the forelands of port Networks’; Kulke, Kesavapany and (2009); also Qaisar’s chapter in Das
cities? And if so how far inland must we Sakhuja; and Andrade). The early Gupta and Pearson, India and the
go before the ocean influence ends? modern period has done relatively well, Indian Ocean, 1500
/1800; Ewald,
What about estuaries? Predrag but we need much more on the modern ‘Crossers of the Sea’; and Anderson,
 Reviews 83

‘‘‘The Ferringees are Flying
/ the Economic and Social History Review Indian Ocean Africa and Asia.
Ship is Ours!’’’. 42.2 (2005): 143
/86. London: Routledge, 2005.
6 See for example: Antony, Pirates in Andrade, Tonio. ‘Beyond Guns, Germs, Campbell, Gwyn, Suzanne Miers and
the Age of Sail and Elusive Pirates, and Steel: European Expansion and Joseph Miller, eds. Women in
Pervasive Smugglers; and Kleinen Maritime Asia, 1400
/1750’. Journal Slavery. Vol.1: Africa, the Indian
and Osseweijer Ports, Pirates and of Early Modern History 14 (2010): Ocean World, and the Medieval
Hinterlands in East and Southeast 165
/86. North Atlantic. Athens: Ohio UP,
Asia. For India-focussed studies, Antony, Robert J, ed. Elusive Pirates, 2007.
see: Risso, ‘Cross Cultural Pervasive Smugglers: Violence and Chandra, Satish, ed. The Indian Ocean:
Perceptions of Piracy’; Clandestine Trade in the Greater Explorations in History, Commerce
Subramanian’s contribution in China Seas. Hong Kong: Hong Kong and Politics. New Delhi: Sage, 1987.
Ghosh and Muecke, Cultures of UP, 2010. Chaudhuri, K N. Asia before Europe:
Trade; and a chapter in */*/*/. Pirates in the Age of Sail. New Economy and Civilisation of the
Malekandathil, Maritime India. York: Norton, 2007. Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam
7 See Frost, ‘Asia’s Maritime Networks’ Arasaratnam, Sinappah. ‘Maritime India to 1750. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
and Kaarsholm and Hofmeyr, in the Seventeenth Century’. 1990.
Popular and the Public. Maritime India. New Delhi: Oxford */*/*/. Trade and Civilisation in the
8 The Corrupting Sea: A Study of UP, 2004. Indian Ocean: An Economic History
Mediterranean History (2000). Bang, Anne. Sufis and Scholars of the from the Rise of Islam to 1750.
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Sea: Family Networks in East Africa, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985.

1860
/1925. London and New York: Chaunu, Pierre. European Expansion in
Works Cited and Further Reading
Allen, Richard B. ‘Satisfying the Want for Routledge Curzon, 2003. the Later Middle Ages. Trans.
Labouring People: European Slave Barendse, R J. Arabian Seas, 1700
/1763. Katherine Bertram. Amsterdam:
Trading in the Indian Ocean, 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2009. North-Holland, 1979.
1500
/1850’. Journal of World */*/*/. The Arabian Seas: The Indian Das Gupta, Ashin. Indian Merchants and
History 21.1 (2010): 45
/73. Ocean World of the Seventeenth the Decline of Surat c. 1700
/1750.
*/*/*/. Slaves, Freedmen, and Century. Armonk: E Sharpe, 2002. 1979. New Delhi: Manohar, 1994.
Indentured Laborers in Colonial Bentley, Jerry H, Renate Bridenthal and */*/*/, ed. The World of the Indian
Mauritius. Cambridge: Cambridge Karen Wigen, eds. Seascapes: Ocean Merchant, 1500
/1800:
UP, 1999. Maritime History, Littoral Cultures Collected Essays of Ashin Das
*/*/*/. ‘Suppressing a Nefarious Traffic: and Transoceanic Exchanges. Gupta. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2001.
Britain and the Abolition of Slave Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Das Gupta, Ashin, and M N Pearson,
Trading in India and the Western Press, 2007. eds. India and the Indian Ocean,
Indian Ocean, 1770
/1835’. William Bose, Sugata. A Hundred Horizons: The 1500
/1800. 1987. New Delhi:
and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser., 66.4 Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Oxford UP, 1999.
(2009): 873
/94. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard UP, Ewald, Janet J. ‘Crossers of the Sea:
Alpers, Edward A, Gwyn Campbell and 2006. Slaves, Freedmen, and Other
Michael Salman, Resisting Bondage Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean Migrants in the Northwestern Indian
in Indian Ocean Africa And Asia. and the Mediterranean World in the Ocean, c. 1750
/1914’. American
London: Routledge, 2006. Age of Philip II. 2 vols. London: Historical Review 105 (2000):
Andaya, Barbara Watson. ‘Oceans Collins, 1972. 69
/91.
Unbounded: Transversing Asia Broeze, Frank, ed. Brides of the Sea: Port Frost, Mark Ravinder. ‘Asia’s Maritime
across ‘‘Area Studies’’’. Journal of Cities of Asia from the 16th
/20th Networks and the Colonial Public
Asian Studies 65.4 (2006): 669
/90. Centuries. Sydney: New South Sphere, 1840
/1920’. New Zealand
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Gilbert, Erik. Dhows and the Colonial Perspectives. Singapore: ISEAS-IIAS McPherson, K. The Indian Ocean: A
Economy of Zanzibar, 1860
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Greene, Jack P, and Philip D Morgan, Knowledge, Islam and Intellectual Metcalf, T R. Imperial Connections: India
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Gupta, Pamila, Isabel Hofmeyr and Kulke, Hermann, K Kesavapany and Moorthy, Shanti, and Ashraf Jamal, eds.
Michael Pearson, eds. Eyes Across Vijay Sakhuja eds. Nagapattinam to Indian Ocean Studies: Cultural,
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Hall, Richard. Empires of the Monsoon: A of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. ‘Oceans of History’. American Historical
History of the Indian Ocean and its Land, Isaac. ‘Tidal Waves: the New Review 111.3 (2006): 717
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Genealogy and Mobility across the Asian Merchants and Businessmen the Mosque. London: Curzon, 2000.
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Press, 2006. Machado, Pedro. ‘Cloths of a New */*/*/. ‘Littoral Society: The Concept
Horden, Peregrine, and Nicholas Purcell. Fashion: Networks of Exchange, and the Problems’. Journal of World
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Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Indian Ocean in the Eighteenth and
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London: Hurst, 1994.
The Swahili: The Social Landscape Clothed the World. Ed. Tirthankar
*/*/*/. Port Cities and Intruders: the
of a Mercantile Society. Oxford: Roy, Om Prakash, Kaoru Sugihara
Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal
Blackwell, 2000. and Giorgio Riello. Leiden: Brill,
in the Early Modern Era. 1998.
Jones, Stephanie. ‘Colonial to 2008.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP,
Postcolonial Ethics: Indian Ocean Malekandathil, Pius. Maritime India:
2003.
‘‘Belongers’’, 1668
/2008’. Trade, Religion and Polity in the
*/*/*/. The World of the Indian Ocean,
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2005.
Historical and Fictional Narratives of */*/*/. Portuguese Cochin and the
Prakash, Om. Bullion for Goods:
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European and Indian Merchants in
Africa’. Journal of East African New Delhi: Manohar, 2001.
Studies I.1 (2007): 16
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/1800.
Kaarsholm, Preben, and Isabel Hofmeyr, Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in New Delhi: Manohar, 2004
eds. Popular and the Public: the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port. */*/*/. ed. The Trading World of the
Cultural Debates and Struggles over Chapel Hill: University of North Indian Ocean, 1500
/1800 CE.
Public Space in Modern India, Africa Carolina Press, 2007. Calcutta: Centre for Studies in
and Europe. Kolkata: Seagull Press, */*/*/. ‘Mercantile Networks, Port Civilizations, forthcoming.
2009. Cities, and ‘‘Pirate’’ States: Conflict Prakash, Om, and Denys Lombard, eds.
Kirby, David, and Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen. and Competition in the Indian Commerce and Culture in the Bay of
The Baltic and North Seas. London: Ocean World of Trade before the Bengal, 1500
/1800. New Delhi:
Routledge, 2003. Sixteenth Century’. Journal of the Manohar, 1999.
Klein, Bernhard, ed. Fictions of the Sea: Economic and Social History of the Prange, Sebastian. ‘Scholars and the
Critical Perspectives on the Ocean in Orient 51 (2008): 543
/77. Sea: A Historiography of the Indian
British Literature and Culture. Martin, Esmond Bradley, and Chryssee Ocean’. History Compass 6/5
Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002. Perry Martin. Cargoes of the East: (2008): 1382
/93.
Klein, Bernhard, and Gesa Mackenthun, The Ports, Trade and Cultures of the Ray, H P. The Archaeology of Seafaring in
eds. Sea Changes: Historicizing the Arabian Sea and Western Indian Ancient South Asia. Cambridge and
Ocean. New York: Routledge, 2004. Ocean. London: Elm Tree Books, New York: Cambridge UP, 2003.
Kleinen, John, and Manon Osseweijer, 1978. Ray, H P, and Edward Alpers, eds. Cross
eds. Ports, Pirates and Hinterlands Matvejevic, Predrag. Mediterranean: A Currents and Community Networks:
in East and Southeast Asia: Cultural Landscape. Berkeley: Encapsulating the History of the
Historical and Contemporary University of California Press, 1999. Indian Ocean World. New Delhi:
 Reviews 85

Nehru Memorial Museum and Cosmopolitanism in the Western The Europe
/India Maritime History
Library and Oxford UP, 2007. Indian Ocean. London: Hurst; New Project Bhttp://www.edumari
Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and York: Columbia UP, 2008. time.org/
the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Steinberg, Philip E. The Social The Indian Ocean as Visionary Area,
Seaman, Pirates and the Anglo- Construction of the Ocean. New Roskilde University Bhttp://www.
American Maritime World, York: Cambridge UP, 2001. ruc.dk/isg_en/indianocean/
1700
/1750. New York: Cambridge Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ed. Maritime Indian Ocean discussion network.
UP, 1987. India. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2004. [email protected]
*/*/*/. Villains of All Nations, Atlantic Subramanian, Lakshmi, ed. Ports,
Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Towns, Cities: A Historical Tour of
Beacon Press, 2004. the Indian Littoral. Mumbai: Marg
Risso, Patricia. ‘Cross Cultural Publications, 2008. Nigel Worden
Perceptions of Piracy: Maritime Titlestad, Michael and Pamila Gupta,
Violence in the Western Indian eds. ‘Story of the Voyage’. Spec.
Eyes Across the Water:
Ocean and Persian Gulf Region issue of English Studies in Africa Navigating the Indian
during the Long Eighteenth 51.2 (2008) and South African Ocean
Century’. Journal of World History Historical Journal 61.4 (2009).
12.2 (2001): 293
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*/*/*/. Merchants and Faith: Muslim Ocean. 1961. Trans. J Guicharnaud. and Michael Pearson, eds
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Commerce and Culture in the Indian London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, UNISA Press, Pretoria, 2010, pb
Ocean. Boulder: Westview Press, 1966. 396pp ISBN 1 8688 8572 5
1995. Um, Nancy. The Merchant Houses of www.unisa.ac.za
‘Roundtable: Reviews of Michael Mocha: Trade & Architecture in an
Pearson, The Indian Ocean, with a Indian Ocean Port. Seattle and
Response by Michael Pearson’. London: University of Washington
International Journal of Maritime Press, 2009.
Vaidik, Aparna. Imperial Andamans: Reviewers, like publishers, tend to treat
History 16.1 (2004): 1
/42.
Colonial Encounter and Island collections of conference papers with
‘Roundtable: Reviews of Kerry Ward,
History. Basingstoke: Palgave some suspicion. They are often like
Networks of Empire, with a
Macmillan, 2011. holiday souvenirs or family photo
Response by Kerry Ward’.
International Journal of Maritime Vink, Markus P M. ‘Indian Ocean Studies albums that evoke vivid memories for
History 21.1 (2009): 297
/350. and the ‘‘New Thalassology’’’. those who participated in them but are
Rozwadowski, Helen M. Fathoming the Journal of Global History II.1 (2007): of little interest to others. Readers will
Ocean: The Discovery and 41
/62. pick and choose a few chapters
Exploration of the Deep Sea. Ward, Kerry. Networks of Empire: Forced especially of interest to them, or one
Cambridge: Belknap Press of Migration in the Dutch East India which has the fortune of being cited in
Harvard UP, 2005. Company. Cambridge: Cambridge other works. Reviewers are more like the
Samuelson, Meg, and Shaun Viljoen, UP, 2009. unwilling neighbour, forced to sit on the
eds. ‘Oceanic Worlds/Bordered Wigen, K. ‘Introduction’. Seascapes: couch while the enthusiastic owner
Worlds’. Social Dynamics 33.2 Maritime History, Littoral Cultures forces him through every page of the
(2007). and Transoceanic Exchanges. Ed. album.
Sharma, Yogesh, ed. Coastal Histories: Jerry H Bentley, Renate Bridenthal
Eyes across the Water might, at
Society and Ecology in Pre-Modern and Karen Wigen. Honolulu:
first skim, appear to fit into this mould.
University of Hawai’i Press, 2007.
India. New Delhi: Primus Books, It is a volume of relatively unedited
2010. papers from a conference held at the
Sheriff, Abdul. Dhow Cultures of the Selected Internet Resources University of the Witwatersrand in
Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill Johannesburg in 2007. Amitav Ghosh
Commerce and Islam. London: University Bhttp://indianocean evokes the event fondly in his Foreword.
Hurst; New York: Columbia UP, worldcentre.com/index.html But what is to be gained for the
2010. Indian Ocean and South Asian Research visiting neighbour? The back cover
Simpson, Edward. Muslim Society and Network, University of Technology, blurb does not reassure:
the Western Indian Ocean: The Sydney Bhttp://iosarn.com/
Seafarers of Kachchh. London: Centre for Indian Studies in Africa,
Routledge, 2009. University of the Witwatersrand This book captures the complexities of
Simpson, Edward, and Kai Kresse, eds. Bhttp://www.cisa-wits.org.za/ these emerging Indian Ocean realities
Struggling with History: Islam and index.htm . . . building on older traditions of
 86 Reviews

studying the Indian Ocean, this book This is of course not in itself a bad account. This is the only writing
offers new departures . . . it offers rich thing. As Meg Samuelson comments in known to me which takes up these
interdisciplinary perspectives that draw her exceptionally perceptive chapter, issues seriously. There is,
in film, literature, media, tourism, attempting to artificially gather unsurprisingly, a heavy focus on
religion and music. ‘anecdotal snippets . . . into a South Africa, although Gwyn
consolidated argument’ is no longer Campbell’s essay forces us to
Are we in for an eclectic mishmash? Or required or even desirable among broaden our perspective on both
worse, since Ghosh reveals, ‘as always scholars. Certainly the range of material time and place and Ashraf Jamal
happens in a good conference some of in this volume provides a vivid indicator cogently raises the issue of
the most exciting discoveries [occur] on of how Indian Ocean studies are being whether there can be an Indian
the sidelines, during mealtime approached today. And one of its great Ocean equivalent to Paul Gilroy’s
conversations’. Lacking a restaurant strengths is that it brings together long- Black Atlantic.
bugging system, these will not appear in established scholars and new The third section (‘Island-ness in
the published proceedings. researchers. the Indian Ocean’) has more than a
Certainly there can be little cohesion But it would be wrong to suggest that geographic focus. It interrogates
in a collection of twenty-four chapters the book remains as a collection the uniqueness of island societies
that range across such a vast region, of ‘fleeting, fragmentary and fluid and histories, and so identifies a
written by contributors from very
moments’, to cite Meg Samuelson again. distinctive feature of the Indian Ocean
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different disciplinary and ideological

The conference marked an important world. However, its focus is entirely
perspectives. Thus we have historical
stage in the development of Indian Ocean on the southwest Indian Ocean and
pieces with approaches ranging from
studies in South Africa and the editors few of the chapters refer to the key
longue durée (Gwyn Campbell on the
have done justice to this by valiantly theme of ‘eyes across the water’, being
emergence of an Indian Ocean Africa) to
pulling the chapters together into three rather internal studies of historical
cultural studies (Mike Pearson on
themes which force a conversation and cultural aspects of specific
cultural brokers), transnational
between differing approaches, if not a islands in the region.
perspectives (Mark Frost on
direct debate. Each is heralded by an The problems of a conference
cosmopolitan discourses from
incisive introductory piece. collection are epitomised by the
Singapore to South Africa via India),
The first section (‘The Idea of the Afterword by Titlestad. This is in itself
discourse and literary analysis (Ashraf
Ocean’) considers themes across the a fascinating piece, not least in its
Jamal on representations of Africa’s
range of the Indian Ocean. Michael playful but insightful juxtaposition of
southernmost tip) and gender issues
Pearson’s framing essay and his own Sherlock Holmes and Amitav Ghosh.
(Jon Soske on miscegenation in
chapter focus on the concept of the But how is it an ‘afterword’ to this
twentieth-century Durban). The
collection includes anthropologists who ‘ocean as corridor’ */ a new argument collection? It makes no reference to
range between ethnographic which develops his earlier work on the many of the key themes raised by
descriptions (Christian Ghasarian on La ocean as history. Most of the chapters other authors. Is this the right place
Reunion South Asians), participant here speak to this broad theme, with an for its publication?
observation (David Picard tracking intriguing focus on language and print Overall, I immensely enjoyed
island tourists), historical and and their circulation in the region. Mark reading this collection and learned
perceptual ideas (Thomas Hansen on Frost’s piece ends by questioning much from it, primarily due to the
tensions within identifications of whether South Africa acted as a efforts of its valiant editors. It is an
Indianness in South Africa) and identity ‘faultline or gateway’ in these important souvenir of a significant
politics (Rosabelle Boswell on ‘creoles’ processes. conference and almost all of its
in Mauritius and Seychelles). And also This leads to the second section chapters open up new ideas. But
literary scholars who explicate identity (‘Africa as a faultline in the Indian in the nature of such publications,
through historical texts (Meg Samuelson Ocean’). To me this is the most I suspect that few who are
on M K Jeffreys) or literary ones (Ronit successful, largely because of Isobel not reviewers will read it from
Fenkel on cultural negation), and those Hofmeyr’s framing essay. As is cover to cover. Perhaps when
who use literary texts to explicate history appropriate for a conference held in twenty four single-authored books
(Srilata Ravi on the plight of Chagos Africa, the essays in this section emerge from the authors
islanders in exile) or negate history (Dan collectively critique the comparative represented here as they almost
Ojwang on M G Vassanji), and film to visibility of India and Africa in Indian certainly will in the decade to come,
challenge fixed identities (Stefanie Ocean studies and make a cogent we will look at this conference
Lotter on South African/Indian film argument for the need to realign family album with greater
industry). scholarship to take Africa more fully into affection.
 Reviews 87

as conduits for many cultures:

THE INDIAN Indian, African, Arab and also
European.

OCEAN IN THE Ghosh’s debut novel, The Circle

of Reason (1986), establishes his
interest in the Indian Ocean. Much of
FICTION OF the text’s action takes place on the
Mariamma, a boat transporting
AMITAV GHOSH economic migrants from India to the
fictional Arab island of al-Ghazira.1
Ghosh’s discussion of the Indian
Claire Chambers Ocean here anticipates his third text,
In an Antique Land (1992). In this text,
Ghosh portrays medieval trade along
This essay offers an overview of the Indian Ocean as a ‘shared
representations of the Indian Ocean in enterprise’. Like the other major player
Amitav Ghosh’s fiction, particularly in Anglophone Indian Ocean literature,
focusing on In an Antique Land and Sea Abdulrazak Gurnah (see Chambers,
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British Muslim Fictions), Ghosh portrays

of Poppies. To schematise Ghosh’s
the societies along the Mediterranean,
oeuvre broadly, in early works, such as
Indian and African coastlines as
The Circle of Reason (1986), The Shadow Sea of Poppies intersects with,
constituting an ‘archipelago of towns’,
Lines (1989), In an Antique Land (1992) develops from, and contrasts with In
cosmopolitan, interconnected
and The Calcutta Chromosome (1996), an Antique Land in three resonant and
cities lining the shores of the Indian
Ghosh looks at intermixtures created significant ways. Firstly, both books
Ocean, which are in many ways
by migration from the Indian examine the way in which the Indian
remote from the more monocultural,
subcontinent and poor Arab countries Ocean altered from a site of
rural hinterlands.2
such as Egypt to the oil-rich Gulf collaboration and co-operation to a
Ghosh suggests that people need
and Anglo-America; in mid-career, he postcolonial world where exchange is
a model of belonging that moves away
looked at specific regions within India less frequent. In In an Antique Land,
from national lines. The Ocean
or at connections between India and Ghosh powerfully argues that over the
provides a forum for erasing the divisive
other parts of Asia (in Dancing in 800 years between the medieval non-
‘shadow lines’ he problematises in
Cambodia, At Large in Burma (1998), hegemonic world order that facilitated
many of his novels. And this extends
Countdown (1999), The Glass Palace to a questioning of the very divisions marriage between Jewish Ben Yiju and
(2000) and The Hungry Tide (2004)). between oceans themselves. Sea of his apparently Indian wife, Ashu, and
His most recent phase may be said to Poppies links the indentureship the neo-colonial world of the 1990s that
begin with the ambitious Indian system of the Indian Ocean to the produced the First Gulf War, cultural
Ocean-centred global reach of 2009’s Atlantic slave trade through the figure interchange has been diminished by
Sea of Poppies (the first in his of Zachary. This central character from colonialism, ‘that unquenchable,
proposed Ibis trilogy of novels; the Sea of Poppies is the mixed-race son demonic thirst that has raged ever since
second volume was published in of a Maryland freedwoman, who passes [ . . .] over the Indian Ocean, the Arabian
late spring 2011). However, Ghosh’s for white. His story, as second mate of Sea and the Persian Gulf’ (288).
complex oeuvre soon confounds such the Ibis, begins in 1838, the year full However, Sea of Poppies, which is
attempts at periodisation. One of emancipation was granted to all slaves, set at the height of European imperial
the most consistent themes across and when the vessel’s role as a power in the mid-nineteenth century,
his work
/ both fictional and non- slaving-ship changes to the indicates that linguistic hybridisation
fictional, although this terminology is transportation of convicts and girmityas and dialogue between cultures also
moot when discussing Ghosh’s writing
/ (indentured labourers) from India to Fiji. emerge from the ‘enabling violence’
is the material geography of the Indian Sea of Poppies concentrates on, of the colonial encounter (see Spivak,
Ocean. In an Antique Land and Sea and yet exceeds the focal point of, the ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ 280
/03
of Poppies, in particular, highlight Indian Ocean, thus constituting a central and Critique 371). Whereas arch-
connections between various part of Ghosh’s politics of border- imperialists, such as the character of
townships along the Ocean’s challenging, indicated in his deployment Burnham in Sea of Poppies, argue
coastline, which are represented of the iconic phrase ‘shadow lines’. that ‘the Africa trade was the greatest
 88 Reviews

exercise in freedom since Bomma and Zachary, and on merchants, their midst, and that they came from
God led the children of Israel out of middlemen and indentured labourers. a wide range of linguistic and cultural
Egypt’ (73), onboard the Ibis we see The manifesto of the Subaltern regions (‘Of Fanas’ 56). Compare this
that provisional freedoms and Studies group, a collective of radical to Rozina Visram’s portrayal of
relationships are formed despite Indian historians of the 1980s and mostly Muslim lascars in her Ayahs,
racism, drug addiction and 1990s, famously aims ‘to rectify the Lascars, and Princes, or to Imtiaz
bondage. elitist bias characteristic of much Dharker’s poem sequence, entitled
Secondly, a preoccupation with research and academic work’ (Guha vii). ‘Lascar Johnnie 1930’, in which she
language is a feature of both books. Part of In an Antique Land was published lyrically asserts the seamen’s
In an Antique Land’s discussion of in scholarly form as the essay, ‘The Muslimness:
Judæo-Arabic, a hybrid and now Slave of MS. H.6’, in the seventh
obsolete trading language, becomes, Subaltern Studies volume. Ghosh’s The captain chooses not to hear
in Sea of Poppies, an erudite, verging approach to history has close affinities Our songs, or know our names.
on pretentious, fascination with many with other Subaltern Studies historians’ Allahuddin, Mohammed, Mubarak,
different languages, including Bhojpuri, especially in his declared aim to write Bismillah.
Bengali, Indian-inflected English, French, about those who did not have the Our names are prayers. (57)
the colonial English of Hobson-Jobson power ‘to inscribe themselves
(Yule and Burnell) and, most physically upon time’ (Antique 17), As with The Shadow Lines’ erasure of
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interestingly, nautical languages such and he has acknowledged these a tense communal history in its
as Laskari, which Ghosh describes connections in interview (Silva and positioning of the Hazratbal mosque as
elsewhere as a ‘profoundly eclectic’ Tickell 173). However, I have a sanctuary for Kashmiri secular
tongue (‘Of Fanas’ 59). In his writing, suggested elsewhere that Ghosh’s interaction and with In an Antique
then, Ghosh is eager to demonstrate protestations as to the subaltern Land’s political quietism on the issue
that the ‘dialogue’ between people nature of In an Antique Land’s of Israel/Palestine (Chambers, ‘History
from various racial and religious groups characters are somewhat disingenuous, as Fiction’ 48
/52 and Chambers and
travelling in the Indian Ocean was not especially given Ben Yiju’s status as Yassin-Kassab), in Sea of Poppies Ghosh
simply metaphorical, but also literally one of the foremost traders of his fails to engage with the sensitive topic
enshrined in the polyglot tongues of the time (Chambers, ‘History as Fiction’ of whether religious, specifically
coasts’ inhabitants. 81
/83). Muslim, identity might be more
His subaltern narrativisation is important to lascars than much-vaunted
similarly uneven in Sea of Poppies. On syncretism (see Visram 34
/54;
the positive side, as I shall discuss later, Ansari 34
/40). Arguably, Ghosh
he provides a searing critique of the continues Herman Melville’s literary
caste system and narrates the stories project of producing sea stories that
of outcaste figures, including an may be read as ‘histories from below’
opium-addicted prisoner, a ‘mulatto’ while, like Melville’s Bartleby, he
who hides his racial identity and an ‘prefer[s] not to’ discuss the lascars’
eloping Hindu couple. However, we religious identity.3
may wish to scrutinise Ghosh’s Ghosh has been preoccupied by
discussion of lascars more critically. seas and tidal regions in almost all
He positions multi-regional lascars of his novels to date. The seafaring
and their hybrid language, Laskari, characters that Ghosh portrays in
as symbols for cross-cultural his oeuvre trace their ancestries to a
interchange, yet in doing so, renders wide variety of littoral regions, from
almost invisible the fact that most the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and
of these seamen were Muslims. Few Persian Gulf (The Circle of Reason
Muslim characters or lascars are and In an Antique Land), to the Strait
depicted in any detail in Sea of of Malacca (The Glass Palace), and the
Poppies and, in his essay on lascars, Sundarbans delta (The Hungry
Ghosh briefly glosses over the fact Tide). The Blitz-era English Channel
that most of the lascars onboard the makes occasional appearances in
Finally, in both texts Ghosh ship he researches were Muslims, The Shadow Lines, while the title of
attempts to write ‘history from below’ finding it more interesting that there Joseph Conrad’s seafaring novella,
with his focus on the former slaves, were a few Hindus and Christians in The Shadow-Line (1916), is subverted
 Reviews 89

to evoke the simultaneously material confronts the Hindu caste system which, albeit only men
/ than the crews of
and illusory nature of borders. From as Corbridge and Harriss have shown, merchant ships in the age of sail.
the opening page of Sea of Poppies, was a rigid arrangement of lifelong (‘Of Fanas’ 57)
Ghosh signals one reason for his hierarchisation that British tactics of
recurring preoccupation with water: divide and rule ‘did much to harden’
the fear of crossing the Kala-Pani, or (8). This is emphasised further when Like many of the Subaltern Studies
‘Black Water’, and losing caste status the ship’s Captain declares that historians with whom he has close
was prevalent among many Hindus Indians view their British colonisers as links, Ghosh seeks to construct a
until relatively recently, highlighting ‘the guarantors of the order of caste’ history that transcends national
a desire for cultural purity which (Sea 442). Perhaps a final reason for borders and focuses attention on
Ghosh’s writing consistently Ghosh’s attraction to aquatic settings groupings other than the nation-state.
challenges. Later, Deeti marvels in his books is that these necessitate Ghosh’s novels shift attention
at Pugli travelling all the way to an acknowledgement of the fluid away from the nation-state to
Mareech/Mauritius for marriage: nature of boundaries; it is impossible examine the interaction between
to inscribe on water the ‘shadow lines’ differently structured communities
or rigid borders between nations, fringing the Mediterranean and
Deeti was amazed to hear her
speaking of crossing the sea for a academic disciplines, system of Indian Ocean. Ghosh challenges
wedding, as if it were no different knowledge, selves and Others, that the claims to definitiveness of
academic discourses, such as
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from going to another village Ghosh fervently contests.

downriver. But aren’t you afraid, Further, Ghosh’s attention to nation-based histories, indicating
she said, of losing caste? Of crossing the cultural, economic and social that knowledge can only ever be
the Black Water, and being on a ship connections between inhabitants of partial, subjective and historically
with so many sorts of people? the far-flung lands and islands of contingent.
(327
/28) the Indian Ocean pursues another
important theme that defines and
drives his texts. He frequently makes
plain that travel, migration and cultural
interaction are not recent byproducts
of globalisation, but endeavours
that societies have always undertaken
for economic, religious, ideological,
strategic or personal reasons. Ghosh
broadens our knowledge of cultural
interconnection at various moments
in history including the brutal ‘oil
encounter’ in the Persian Gulf from
the 1970s onwards, the twelfth-century
global trading system and
interactions between Indians and
Southeast Asians during the Second
World War and thereafter. Like
Benedict Anderson, he reminds us
that national borders are a relatively
recent way of dividing newly-discrete
In conclusion, like his historian
‘imagined communities’. The ocean
The girl responds by arguing that forebears Fernand Braudel and K N
is perhaps his most striking model
because the crossing is analogous to a Chaudhuri, and in consonance with a
for proto-cosmopolitanism,
pilgrimage, the Hindus onboard will not number of more recent historians,
as he writes in a recent essay:
lose caste and declares that from that anthropologists, linguists and
day on they are all ‘ship-siblings’, the geographers, such as Milo Kearney,
sea eradicating caste and class It is common nowadays to hear Michael Pearson, Sugata Bose and
differences between them. As John ‘diversity’ being spoken of as though André Wink, Ghosh indicates that,
Thieme rightly observes, these it were some thrilling new invention. despite their differences, the culture
characters find themselves ‘all in the But it is unlikely that there were ever that was and is shared by the
same boat’. Through Pugli, Ghosh more diverse collections of people
/ civilisations bordering on the Indian
 90 Reviews

Ocean demands greater attention. Lughod, following Fernand Braudel, Commonwealth Literature 41.1
In an early essay, ‘The Diaspora in also portrays medieval (2006): 33 50.
Indian Culture’ (1990), the thrust of Mediterranean society as an */*/*/. ‘Riots, Rumours, and Relics:
Ghosh’s argument is that India ‘archipelago of towns’, a term which, Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines’.
overspills her national borders, in she argues, ‘capture[s] the fact that, Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines:
large part because of the indentured within the same general region, a A Critical Companion. Ed. M Prasad.
labour system across oceans, and variety of social formations New Delhi: Pencraft, 2008. 37
/55.
that connections between the nation coexisted’ (13). Ghosh only uses Chambers, Claire, and Robin Yassin-
and its diaspora persist in the the term ‘archipelago of towns’ once Kassab. ‘Ghoshwood’s Mendacity’.
when he argues that Cairo, ‘like Pulse (2010b) Bhttp://
imagination. He writes rather
Delhi or Rome, is actually not so pulsemedia.org/2010/05/11/
idealistically, ‘Just as the spaces of
much a single city as an archipelago ghoshwoods-mendacity/
India travel with the migrant, India too
of townships, founded on Chaudhuri, K N ‘Reflections on Town and
has no vocabulary for separating the
neighbouring sites, by various
migrant from India’ (249), thus calling Country in Mughal India’. Modern
different dynasties and rulers’
into question the seemingly unitary Asian Studies 12.1 (1978):
(Antique 33). Here, the phrase is
nature of the nation-state. An insight 77 96.
used to denote a city that has
from K N Chaudhuri speaks to Ghosh’s Corbridge, Stuart, and John Harriss.
evolved out of a number of different
portrayal of the Indian Ocean. He Reinventing India: Liberalization,
villages, but Ghosh also suggests
Hindu Nationalism and Popular
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writes that ‘There can be few aspects the existence of a conglommerate of

of Indian studies more neglected than Democracy. 2000. London: Polity,
urban satellites, whose economy
that of historical geography’ (Chaudhuri largely excludes the rural areas. 2006.
77). Since the mid-1970s a theory 3 Critics who make a comparison Dharker, Imtiaz. ‘Lascar Johnnie 1930’.
has emerged that Western accounts between Ghosh and Melville include The Terrorist at my Table.
of history are incomplete, due to an John Thieme (np) and Christopher Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 2006. 55
/62.
excessive concentration on the Rollason. The latter writes that ‘the Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge:
Ibis recalls multiple moments from Selected Interviews and Other
temporal perspective, at the expense
Herman Melville’s maritime writings, Writings, 1972 1977. Ed. Colin
of the spatial dimension. Foucault
resembling the vessels of Moby-Dick Gordon. Trans. Colin Gordon and
famously indicts Western thought
in its mix of ethnic origins, ‘‘Benito others. Hemel Hempstead:
as a whole for its inattention to space:
Cereno’’ in its past as a slave-ship, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1980.
‘[s]pace was treated as the dead,
and ‘‘Billy Budd’’ as a locus of Ghosh, Amitav. The Calcutta
the fixed, the undialectical, the
on-board class violence’. Chromosome. Basingstoke: Picador,
immobile. Time, on the contrary, was
1996.
richness, fecundity, life, dialectic’ (70).
*/*/*/. The Circle of Reason. 1986.
In In an Antique Land, Ghosh draws Works Cited
London: Granta, 1994.
attention to space through the care he Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European
*/*/*/. Countdown. Delhi: Ravi Dayal,
takes in evoking current domestic Hegemony: The World System, A.D.
1999.
spaces in Egypt and India, and in 1250
/1350. New York: Oxford UP,
*/*/*/. Dancing in Cambodia, At Large
imagining older ones from the twelfth- 1989.
in Burma. Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1998.
century Indian Ocean system. In Sea of Ansari, Humayan. ‘The Infidel Within’:
Muslims in Britain Since 1800. */*/*/. ‘The Diaspora in Indian Culture’.
Poppies, preoccupation with space is 1990. The Imam and the Indian.
indicated in the novel’s concentration on London: Hurst, 2004.
Chambers, Claire. British Muslim Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 2001. 243
/50.
the Ibis ship, its materiality, and the */*/*/. The Glass Palace. London:
Fictions: Interviews with
spatial hierarchies that exist onboard. HarperCollins, 2000.
Contemporary Writers. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 */*/*/. The Hungry Tide. London:
Notes (forthcoming). HarperCollins, 2004.
1 For discussion of the encounter */*/*/. ‘History as Fiction, Fiction as */*/*/. In an Antique Land. London:
between Indians and Arabs in this History: Amitav Ghosh’s In an Granta, 1992.
novel, see Chambers Antique Land’. The Fiction of Amitav */*/*/. ‘Of Fanas and Forecastles: The
‘Representations’. Ghosh: An Assessment. Ed. O P Indian Ocean and Some Lost
2 This notion of linked townships Dwivedi. Jaipur: Book Enclave, Languages of the Age of Sail’.
along an archipelago of culture is 2010. 51
/91. Economic and Political Weekly 43.25
dramatised particularly well in */*/*/. ‘Representations of the Oil (June 2008): 56
/62.
Gurnah’s Paradise (1994) and Encounter in Amitav Ghosh’s The */*/*/. Sea of Poppies. London: John
Desertion (2004). Janet L Abu- Circle of Reason’. Journal of Murray, 2008.
 Reviews 91

*/*/*/. The Shadow Lines. 1989. Delhi:

Oxford UP, 1995.
Anmole Prasad anxiety of the Florentines and Venetians
who have a virtual monopoly on the
*/*/*/.‘The Slave of MS. H.6’. Writing For Pepper and Christ: spice trade in Europe.
on South Asian History and
A Novel The nautical tale is narrated by
Society. Subaltern Studies VII. one Brother Figuero, a priest and
Ed. Partha Chatterjee and Keki N Daruwalla scribe sailing in the Sao Raphael,
Gyanendra Pandey. Delhi: Oxford Penguin Books India, New Delhi, commanded by Vasco’s brother, Paulo
UP, 1992. 159
/220. 2009, pb da Gama. Figuero is not the Alvaro
Guha, Ranajit. ‘Preface’. In Subaltern 354pp ISBN 0 1430 6581 4 Rs399 Velho of history who (it is held) travelled
Studies I: Writings on South Asian www.penguinbooksindia.com aboard the same ship, but a fictional
History and Society. Ed. Ranajit co-scrivener obsessed by the idea that
Guha. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1982.
the real objective of the mission is the
vii
/viii. The Devil take you! What brought you destruction of the Moors */ and not
Melville, Herman. ‘Bartleby’. 1853. In here? trade and barter with the heathen.
Billy Budd, Sailor and Other We came to seek Christians and spices. Into this central theme Daruwalla
Stories. New York: Bantam, 1981. Alvaro Velho, Roteiro da Primeira braids other strands: the stories of two
95
/130. Viagem de Vasco da Gama friends, Taufiq the young pilot from
Rollason, Christopher. ‘Amitav Ghosh’s
Oman and Ehtesam the painter, both
Sea of Poppies and Salman
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Rushdie’s The Enchantress of living in Cairo in the reign of the

Taufiq, the fictional pilot of the novel Mamluks. The rebellious Ehtesham ul
Florence: History and the Future
who guides Vasco da Gama’s fleet from Haq of Asyut, maker of lamps, painter of
of Indian Writing in English’.
Malindi across the ‘green sea of manuscripts, cannot contain his creative
2008 Bhttp://yatrarollason.info/
darkness’ to the Calicut coast, urge to mere calligraphy; summoned by
files/GhoshRushdiereview08rev.
meditates: ‘how it is through maps that the Muhtasib, the omniscient Inspector
pdf.
oceans know where they slosh and of Weights and Measures of Qahira and
Silva, Neluka, and Alex Tickell. ‘Amitav
mutter . . . Would the monsoons know
Ghosh in Interview with Neluka Upper Egypt (and thereby the Inspector
they were monsoons, were there no
Silva and Alex Tickell’. Kunapipi of Virtue), he is reminded of the virtues
maps?’ Thus put, cartography and
19.3 (1999): 171 77. of praying and warned of the dangers of
navigation make up the crucial elements
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. ‘Can the trying to emulate the Creator by painting
of Keki N Daruwala’s For Pepper and
Subaltern Speak?’ Marxism and the images. Ehtesam staves off the
Christ, a first novel that voyages with the
Interpretation of Culture. Ed. Cary Muhtasib for a while by beautifying
first Portuguese fleet to make landfall off
Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. manuscripts including the Holy Quran
the Indian coast towards the close of the
Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, and by going to the mosque. Convinced
fifteenth century. As stated in the
1988. 271 313. that he is doing no wrong, he seeks
*/*/*/. A Critique of Postcolonial opening lines of the prologue itself, ‘for
allies in holy men against the
Reason: Toward a History of the a century the Portuguese had been
Inspector’s admonition, but in vain. Even
Vanishing Present. Cambridge, MA: slowly scouring the seas, gathering data,
the dervish Ali Hasan Zulm warns him
Harvard UP, 1999. opening up schools of navigation,
collecting maps, sending spies along the against his creative urge, calling it
Thieme, John. ‘Sea of Poppies’. The
Red Sea to find out how the Arabs counterfeiting against the Creator.
Literary Encyclopedia. 30 December
carried on their spice trade with India’. Ehtesam’s peregrinations in Cairo lead
2008. 20 February 2010 Bhttp://
And so it was that on the 8 July 1497 in him to the beautiful Zainab, whom he
www.litencyc.com/php/
the reign of King Dom Manuel, four small marries, his rival-in-love Saleem al Attar,
sworks.php?rec true&UID
ships and a caravel under the command the Perfumer who also works as a spy for
24687
of Vasco da Gama left the estuary of the the Muhtasib and eventually to a Coptic
Visram, Rozina. Ayahs, Lascars, and
Tejo with the sober objective of not just church where, encouraged by its Abbot,
Princes: Indians in Britain
1700
/1947. London: Pluto, 1986. finding a sea route to the spice- he heretically fulfils his dream by
Wink, André. ‘From the Mediterranean to producing regions of India for the greater painting murals and images for the
the Indian Ocean: Medieval History profit and glory of the Portuguese church. It is a time of religious tension
in Geographic Perspective’. kingdom but also of striking a telling between Copts and Muslims: when the
Comparative Studies in Society and blow for Christendom by breaking the demolition of the church at Shentan al
History 44.3 (2002): 416 45. stranglehold of the Mamluk state upon Hagar and the restoration of order in
Yule, Henry, and A C Burnell. Hobson- the trade in the Indian Ocean. The novel Cairo by a show of force bring the Coptic
Jobson: The Anglo-Indian is set in a time when rumours of the Church
/ and Ehtesam
/ under
Dictionary. Ware, Herts: Portuguese expedition are already in the surveillance, he is found out and forced
Wordsworth, 1996. air at Sidon and Tyre, much to the into exile.
 92 Reviews

Calicut, the translation of Dom Manuel’s

letter and the hopelessly inadequate Nicky Marsh
gifts that the Portuguese bring
‘Headless’: From The
with them; not being Moors, Hindus
are taken for Christians by default
Public Record 2009
and their temples are taken for GoldinSenneby
churches. ‘Uneven Geographies: Art and Globa-
Taufiq, who goes back to Portugal lisation’, Nottingham Contemporary, 8
and returns on subsequent missions May
/4 July 2010
with both Cabral and da Gama, is www.nottinghamcontemporary.org
witness to the depredations wrought
upon both coast and shipping by the
Portuguese who engage in corsair
GoldinSenneby’s ‘Headless’
trading and piracy in the name of Christ.
installation at Nottingham
The Maulvi, who taught him in Oman,
Contemporary’s 2010 ‘Uneven
would punish him with a stick but
Geographies’ exhibition is arranged as
always on the left side. ‘The right hand
an unattended event: two smart office
commits the error and the left hand
chairs face one another on a small
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pays’ he would say, ‘That is what the

platform in front of a range of neatly
world means by even-handedness.’ In
aligned chairs. Between them is a glass
Historiographic scepticism the end Taufiq, haunted by guilt and by
table, adorned only with the two parts of
notwithstanding, Daruwalla is unable the horrific scenes he has witnessed,
a recently published but as yet
devises his own punishment as
to resist the temptation (and in a incomplete novel. The set insists on
atonement.
work of fiction, understandably so) to anonymity and absence: the chairs await
Daruwalla’s Indian Ocean of the
effect what Sanjay Subrahmanyan, in both speakers and audience, the slides
fifteenth and sixteenth century has been
The Legend and Career of Vasco da projected behind the speaker’s chairs
the cynosure of historical interest as
Gama (Foundation Books, New Delhi, move without prompting, the floors and
a key moment in the making of Empire.
2004), calls ‘the meeting of two walls are neutral and untouched. This
Idle though it may be to draw such
‘‘celebrities’’ of the past from two sense of withdrawal stands in stark
long parallels through history, the
quite different domains’ (123). contrast to the exhibition which
world of For Pepper and Christ is
Persuaded by the judicious taking surrounds it, an exhibition dedicated to
fraught with the familiar tensions of
of hostages by da Gama, the King exploring a wide range of possibilities
a more contemporary time: for
of Malindi brings aboard with him for visually realising the enormous
Daruwalla, born in 1937 and growing
Ibn Majid, ‘the greatest navigator disparities and reach of globalisation.
up in the Partition, the themes of
that the Arabs have ever produced.’ George Osodin, in ‘George Osodi’s Oil
displacement, religious and racial
When informed that the mission of tension, the desecration of shrines Rich Niger Delta’, uses photojournalism
the Portuguese was to discover the and, above all, the reduction of the to depict the lurid violence of an
Indian coast, Ibn Majid laughs world into a Christian/Islamic binary. industry that sustains poverty,
loudly and asks in return, ‘Have The Daruwalla of later years, in the environmental destruction and
the Indians discovered you?’ Indian police force and eventually a lawlessness; Mladen Stilinović’s
Nevertheless, in the novel, it is Special Assistant to the Prime Minister ‘Nobody Wants to See’ translates the
not Ibn Majid who pilots the on International Affairs, would be no fact that the three richest men in the
Portuguese to India; he disembarks stranger to the Indian Ocean as a world own as much as the six hundred
leaving behind his protégé Taufiq on strategic sphere where nations jostle million poorest into simple piles of
whose young shoulders rests the for maritime resources and naval paper; Bureau d’Etudes’ disarmingly
onerous task of sailing the fleet supremacy, where blockade and pink cybernetic diagrams map the
across the Indian Ocean. Taufiq, from piracy are weapons of both war and chilling interconnections of global
Oman, has already made two voyages commerce. But there is a third capital flows and nation states. The
to the southern coast of India. Daruwalla in there, the poet who Headless project, conversely, appears to
Through his eyes and those of Brother closes the book pensively saying, offer very little. As people tentatively
Figuero, Daruwalla brings the fleet ‘They would have come in here all the enter its space they are initially met only
to the Malabar coast. What follows is same, by sail, ship or steamboat . . . by a gentle wash of muzak, the sound of
the familiar story of the near-farcical There is something inexorable about Brian Maudlin’s ‘WAVES relaxation */
Indo-Portuguese encounter: the history */ also about gunpowder and smooth piano and the sound of the sea’.
meeting with the Samudriya Raja of gunboats.’ The combination of anodyne corporate
 Reviews 93

confidence and domesticated fantasy of global capital that allow only the very true. Yet the dichotomy between these
escape is disquieting to the point of few to be elevated. competing voices and positions
/ the
parody. This installation is a small part of a naively excited diarist voice of K D and
The viewer who is willing to enter the complex and multivalent series of texts the cynical, self-reflexive voice of
space of the project
/ to sit as a speaker and events that constitute Headless. As Barlow
/ is constantly interrupted by the
and read from the novel or sit among the notes accompanying the installation presence of other kinds of expertise,
the audience and read from the inform us, GoldinSenneby’s search which include the art critics’ discussion
powerpoint slides
/ is given more clues. has generated ‘its own web of of the Headless project and the
The notes, the novel, the powerpoint confusion, concealment and fiction’ as mysteriously powerful ‘Catherine Banks’
presentation and the recorded interview the pair act ‘somewhat like CEOs, who is investigating those who
that eventually follow the artificial employing and enlisting various ostensibly seek to investigate Headless.
soundtrack, guide the participant into specialists
/ economists, authors, The range of authorship positions taken
the difficulties of understanding and curators etc
/ to carry out aspects of up, and deflected, in these texts is
representing the contemporary offshore: their business.’ The installation has almost vertiginous. It is almost
the shadowy existence of international been given a series of alternative impossible to be sure who is speaking
money and high finance that appears to articulations, including three solo and, as importantly, who they are
exist in largely unregulated and exhibitions: ‘The Power Plant’, Toronto speaking for. The novel, like the
anonymous forms. The notes (2008), involving the production of a installation pieces, is driven by tensions
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accompanying the installation indicate documentary and a series of sombrely regarding the wavering distinctions
that it is part of a larger inquiry into ‘an staged pedagogical texts; ‘Index’, between the public and private, the
apparently real company called Stockholm (2009), involving the
owned and the free, the known and
Headless Ltd, registered in the publication of the second half of the
unknown, the secret and shared.
Bahamas’. The unnerving parallels novel, Looking for Headless and Kadist
Readers, viewers and even protagonists
between the mode of investigation and Art Foundation, Paris (2010), involving
(in 2010, Christie’s auctioned the
the object of enquiry are apparent in this the recreation of the offices of a mid-
possibility of becoming a character
carefully designed office set. The century Russian Bank which first
in the third part of the novel) are
slideshow images combine the originated the offshore Eurodollar
consistently positioned beyond these
promotional material of an offshore market. The outsourced projects that
dichotomies.
company, the curriculum vitae of an form part of the broader canvas of these
This textual play, like that of the
academic emissary for GoldinSenneby exhibitions include a travel blog, a
overall project, is confident in its
and a visual map tracing the sprawling series of site-specific presentations and
referencing of its various metatexts. One
interconnections of the broader project. events (a walk around the City of
of the starting points for Senneby
The corporate images are taken from the London, a talk given in a Parisian wood)
Goldin’s enquiry into Headless was their
homepage of the Sovereign Corporation, and a growing number of academic
hypothesis that the corporation is a
the offshore financial company with lectures and critical essays (For further
which Headless is registered and they contemporary incarnation of Acéphale,
details see: http://www.goldinsenneby.
include glamorous women, empty com/gs/). the secret society initiated by Georges
beaches and men without heads. The These different and unstable Bataille in the 1930s and celebrated in
slides describing the project itself both versions of the Headless enquiry are his short-lived review of that name. The
explain and reinforce these enigmas, held together in the form of a still reference to Bataille, an early twentieth-
offering huge entangled networks that unfinished novel, attributed to John century French philosopher with close
demonstrate
/ like the minutely detailed Barlow. This text is a complex links to the Surrealist movement,
diagrams of Mark Lombardi that are also experiment in meta-fiction. Barlow is its reoccurs throughout the project and the
part of the Nottingham exhibition
/ that author, but he ghost-writes for the rich ambivalence of his conception of
the offshore confounds easy mapping fictional novelist, Kate Dent ‘K D’, who, both sovereignty and the general
or visual representation. Goldin in turn, has published her own account economy are revealing. Bataille’s
Senneby are concerned with an industry of the events of the novel in the destructively nihilistic notion of
that offers only the powerful withdrawal catalogue that accompanies ‘The Power sovereignty
/ ‘the refusal to accept the
of agency: it is this that the emblematic Plant’ exhibition. The two overlapping limits that the fear of death would have
headless man suggests. In the Headless texts enact, and comment upon, the us respect in order to ensure, in a
project, escape functions as both a various events that surround the general way, the laboriously peaceful
leitmotif and an alibi for global capital. Headless project from two very different life of individuals’
/ outlined in his
The elevator music turns out to be quite outsider positions: K D works in offshore essay, ‘The Schema of Sovereignty’ (The
instructive: it offers not only escape but finance and understands it, but not the Bataille Reader, Oxford UP, 1997: 318),
cover, rendering inaudible the noisy conventions of contemporary novel offers a way of addressing the irony that
machinery and muting the inequities of writing and for Barlow the opposite is an offshore company seeking to evade
 94 Reviews

the sovereign laws of the nation state the status of its own critique pervades yourself? Where do you ask questions,
should name itself ‘Sovereign’. the project. In the conclusion to where is that dialogue played out?
This dialectical notion of sovereignty the second part of K D/Barlow’s novel, Where is it that you are you?’ (134).
captures the powerful equivocation of for example, Barlow realises the
that which exists only in the destruction destructive qualities of its metafictive
of the deadening ‘laboriously peaceful structure: Jenny Newell
life of individuals’. The idea is
commensurate with Bataille’s notion When he found himself at the very heart Pacific Islands Writing:
of a general economy, in which of his own story, the telling of it has The Postcolonial
expenditure (or consumption), rather become obscured, out of control, Literatures of Aotearoa/
than production (or labour), is made the blurred to incomprehension [. . .] until
primary object. For Bataille, economics now there is nothing left but a strangely New Zealand and
has failed because it disregards the palpable absence of control, an author- Oceania
‘excess energy, translated into the void: the artist as an empty vessel. (198)
Michelle Keown
effervescence of life [ . . .] the ebullition I
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007,
consider, which animates the globe, is The parallels between the art and the
hb
also my ebullition’ (The Accursed Share, offshore worlds are at their sharpest 192pp ISBN 0 1992 7645 5 £45.00
Zone Books, 1991: 10). This excess, or when GoldinSenneby’s hyperrealist www.oup.co.uk
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waste, is a source of vitality for Bataille painting of a headless man jogging on a

that exceeds the instrumental deserted beach, ‘Nassau 6am’, is
restrictions of the bourgeois order, shortlisted for the Sovereign art prize
opening the ‘globe’ to nothing less than (http://www.sovereignartfoundation. ‘All that sailing in the blood, all that
the sun. Yet it is a profoundly com/art-prizes/europe/gallery/?year moving in the family. Migratory birds,
ambivalent vitality, encompassing both 2008). This international prize is circling the great water, looking for the
the wanton violence of war and the sponsored by the offshore company with other shore, a place to land.’ (Caroline
potlatch or gift that subverts notions which Headless Ltd is registered and Sinavaiana-Gabbard, Alchemies of
of industry and accumulation. aims to raise ‘money to help Distance, 2002)
As a frame for reading the offshore disadvantaged children using the arts as
economy, then, this theoretical rehabilitation, education and therapy’ Michelle Keown’s Pacific Islands Writing
vocabulary retains the ambiguity (http://www.sovereignartfoundation. is a tour de force. She navigates us, with
apparent in the office set in the com/what-we-do.php). Barlow’s clarity and energy, through the complex
Nottingham Gallery. It recognises the novelistic account of attending the dynamics of postcolonial Pacific writing.
offshore as a point of departure from the award ceremony, of witnessing Goldin Her intimate understanding of Māori
closed economies of the nation states, Senneby as both patrons and critics of literature and the identity politics of
particularly in the Bretton Woods era in the offshore, is illuminating. The clarity Aotearoa/New Zealand creates a strong
which it first appeared. Yet it leaves of his initial critique, ‘this is Sovereign’s current throughout, punctuated with
entirely open whether this attempt to show itself as cultured and stops at the literatures of other islands.
‘effervescence’
/ the beautiful beaches caring’ (133), is immediately offset by Her use of a canoe metaphor for the
and moored yachts of the offshore the narrator who observes of the author, book’s journey reflects the roving,
promotional iconography
/ is productive ‘tonight you’re like a clever adolescent waterborne histories and contemporary
or destructive. The sense of irony that who has just worked out there are layers identities of Pacific peoples, engaging
accompanies the muzak of Brian of truth and contradiction in the world with the growing hold of a ‘sea-of-islands’
Maudlin remains unresolved by further [ . . .] the party strikes you as egregiously consciousness. She situates writers and
Looking for Headless. hypocritical, yet at the same time you genres clearly, delineating the cultural
The ambivalence of that which is feel somehow jealous that you will never legacies of colonial pasts and persistent
both non-productive and excessive can, be part of this arty, tax-free Champagne fault lines of imperialism, the grapplings
of course, also be discerned in the very guzzling-world’ (134). The intimacy of with local dynamics of cultural identity,
artistic projects which seek to make it the excesses of the art and offshore gender politics, the tug-of-wars between
explicit in regard to the offshore and the economies are laid bare and one tradition and innovation, and between
suggestive parallels between the two immediate effect of this is that its home and diaspora. While she makes
worlds can as easily imply a critique of consumer, sitting in the hard plastic frequent recourse to those greats of the
the former as of the latter. There is a chairs of the Nottingham exhibit, is modern Pacific, Albert Wendt and Epeli
Duchampian quality to the Nottingham made even more unsure of precisely Hau’ofa, she is wide ranging in her
set: the banal office chair is rendered art where they are being located. As the selection of examples of writers, texts,
by virtue of its location in an art text’s omniscient voices chide, ‘ask genres, and languages, including theatre,
gallery and this self-reflexivity about yourself this: How do you express film and the ongoing influence of
 Reviews 95

traditional narrative modes of oratory and artistic, and philosophical traditions’.

storytelling. The narrative features of his novels Ola
Keown, who writes from the position (1991) and Black Rainbow (1992) are
of a pākehā (European New Zealander), borrowed from Samoan fagogo
specialises in the writing of Aotearoa storytelling traditions.
and the broader Pacific. She has written The final section of the book is
on postcolonial representations of the thematic, with explorations of the
body and her current work includes the politics of language and diaspora in
literature of the British settler diaspora. Oceania from the 1970s. Keown is
Pacific Islands Writing is part of the concerned not just with ‘cultural
Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literature translation’ in postcolonial
series, edited by Elleke Boehmer, a environments, but also the impacts of
series sufficiently non-proscriptive to cross-cultural engagements on linguistic
allow refreshingly personal analyses. traditions. She investigates Pacific
The pathway Keown has created orthographies, the relationship
through the otherwise overwhelming between indigenous and colonial
diversity of contemporary Pacific writing European languages, and the rise of
has been selected well, taking us on a ‘contact languages’. She explores
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basically chronological trajectory, via several Pacific languages and how

important literary centres and exploring authors put indigenous languages, as
several key themes. The book is divided well as creole, pidgin, and resistance
into six chapters, each with bite-sized Moving to the twentieth century, modes of speech, to work when
essays. Keown tackles the writing of violence and engaging with the politics of identity and
The first part provides definitions resistance. She analyses indigenous representation. For instance, there is the
and establishes conceptual frameworks. narrative responses to colonialism and rising confidence and call to Māori self-
Of particular use to students and other war, and representations of Māori warrior determination visible in the novels of
newcomers to the field is the section culture in text and film. She traces the Patricia Grace, from the 1970s to the
on ‘Key Concepts and Theoretical textual shift from ‘fatal impact’ models of present, through her increasing practice
Frameworks’ in which ‘race and colonial dominance to the current focus of leaving Māori passages untranslated.
representation’, ‘imperialism and on anticolonial resistance common to In looking to language use among the
colonialism’, ‘postcolonialism’, and so the work of many Pacific writers. many ethnic groups of Hawai’i, Keown
on are given their Pacific context and The second half of the book visits comments on playwright Alani Apio’s
explained with admirable straight- several key themes within contemporary ‘particularly poignant commentary’ in
forwardness. This provides a solid postcolonial literature. Documenting the Kāmau (first performed in 1994). Apio’s
structure for the discussions to come. rise of ‘new’ literatures in the Pacific, part-native Hawaiian character, Michael,
As Keown states in the introduction, from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Hawai’i, verbally attacks a security guard working
the book aims to ‘acknowledge the Aotearoa, Rapa Nui and the for the haole (white) company that is
fluidity of Indigenous Pacific literary Francophone Pacific, Keown provides evicting his family from their ancestral
traditions, but also . . . to identify a rare foray into French and Spanish lands, calling the guard a ‘stupid fagget
particular ‘‘centres’’ of Indigenous literary literatures of the Pacific in addition to haloe’. The guard shifts register,
activity’. She avoids straight national the more familiar canon of writing in switching from English to Hawaiian
delineations, instead responding to the English. Here, and at other key Creole English (HCE), saying ‘I’m doing
cross-cultural milieus formed through junctures, she makes links from Pacific my job brudda, ’Cause I get one family to
colonial histories, linguistic affiliations or literatures to postcolonial literatures feed’. When Michael challenges him
institutions such as the University of the around the world. In examining again, arguing a real Hawaiian would not
South Pacific bringing writers and other postmodernity in Pacific literature (its do this to another, the guard replies in
creative actors together. ‘central fin-de-siècle development’), Hawaiian, to which Michael is shame-
The colonial period is well defined Keown cites the work of Albert Wendt facedly unable to respond.
with a discussion of representations of as exemplifying the ‘increasing Keown at times unwittingly
Pacific peoples by voyagers, experimentation with . . . magic realism, undermines her sympathetic
missionaries and colonisers. Keown pastiche, parody, and metafiction’. In presentation of minority language writers
explores not just the textual conjuring discussing these ‘postmodernist’ with an over-cautious use of ‘sic’ after
up of the Pacific for outsiders but also, techniques in Pacific literature, Wendt quotes, such the HCE quotes above.
more significantly, the impact of ascribes them to a degree of influence Nevertheless, Pacific Islands Writing is
European phases of engagement on from a range of ‘international’ writers, well pitched for those unversed in Pacific
Pacific Islanders, particularly writers. but also to ‘pre-colonial Pacific oral, or literary studies. Given this, Keown
 96 Reviews

could have avoided phrases such as composed over the course of seven would not be able to claim on the
‘literary inter-pelagic’ and used plain years, Zong! is a much more ambitious insurance, whereas if they were ‘thrown
English in preference to ‘metaphorizing’ and sustained project than Philip’s alive into the sea, it would be the loss of
or ‘focalized’. For the most part, however, earlier poetry collection, She Tries Her the underwriters’ (quoted in Philip, 189).
she writes engagingly and I found the Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks When the ship’s owners tried to claim
book hard to put down. There is regular (1989), but it has not yet received the insurance for the drowned slaves,
and clear sign-posting throughout, and acclaim bestowed on that earlier work. however, the underwriter, Thomas
useful cross-referencing within the text. In a recent email conversation, the poet Gilbert, refused to pay. Thus the case
Keown provides excellent tools: a remarked to me, ‘I confess to thinking at went to court, not as a murder trial but
timeline which places Pacific literature times that it appears as if Zong!, like as an insurance dispute over lost
alongside developments in Pacific those souls on board, has sunk to the ‘cargo’. Philip’s long poem investigates
history, politics and culture, plus several bottom of the ocean never to be heard of the Zong massacre through a highly
maps. The volume is finished with an again’ (personal correspondence, 26 material engagement with the short
effective glossary, comprehensive June 2010). Strikingly, in both this court transcript of the 1783 ‘Gregson v
bibliography and index. comment and the poetic work to which it Gilbert’ case. All of the textual material
With her lucid history-telling, pertains, the ocean becomes a trope for that makes up Zong! is derived from this
the power of particular discourses (and two-page court document. Working
samples from texts, and fine-grained
their omissions) to submerge, muffle within the constraints of this linguistic
analysis, Keown’s Pacific Islands Writing
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material, the poetic series consists of an

allows us to appreciate the stories, and induce forgetfulness.
initial section of thirty-two short poems
performances and politics of the
which use only whole words and
region’s postcolonial literature. Keown
phrases from the source text, followed
demonstrates the growing contribution
by four long poems and then a final
Pacific writers are making to Epeli
poem made up of seven highly visual
Hau’ofa’s call for the people of Oceania
overprinted pages, all of which
to see themselves not as small, isolated
physically fragment and recombine
nations but as a powerfully inter-
the material of ‘Gregson v Gilbert’.
connected ‘sea of islands’. In her Zong! pursues the untold story
concluding discussion of the strength of of the drowned African slaves, a
local connections to place resisting the story which, as Philip repeatedly
push of globalisation, Keown writes that insists, ‘cannot be told’ because its
‘the notion of a shared regional identity traces are so thoroughly submerged
for Indigenous Pacific peoples becomes by the legal language of the court
more than just a creative paradigm: it document which does not recognise
also becomes a means of material and the drowned Africans as human
ideological survival’. individuals, but rather as jettisoned
‘cargo’. Many of the thirty-two poems
which make up the initial section of
Mandy Bloomfield Zong! testify to this epistemic
Bringing together Philip’s previous
Zong! expertise as a practising lawyer with her
violence; as a poem entitled Zong!
#19 coldly states, ‘negroes exist/for
M NourbeSe Philip, narrated current poetic practice, Zong! engages
the throwing’ (34). These lines enact
by Setaey Adamu Boateng with the gaps and silences of the legal a process by which human individuals
discourse surrounding the events on become transformed into nameless
Wesleyan University Press,
board the infamous slave ship Zong. In a ‘negroes’ and then into instrumentalised
Middletown, 2008, hb
useful reflective essay which follows the property which can be used or cast
228pp ISBN 0 8195 6876 7 £22.50
http://www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/ poetic text of Zong!, Philip gives an aside as the owner sees fit. In
account of these events and describes Philip’s poem, such acts of discursive
her own process of poetically brutality implicitly function as
investigating this historical trauma. In metonyms for the wider violence
M NourbeSe Philip’s book-length poem, 1781, after getting lost on a slave-trading of the slave trade.
Zong! has been very little reviewed voyage to the Caribbean, the captain of But this is writing within constraints,
since its publication in 2008. Based the Zong decided to cast 150 sick and and it is at the level of the material
on events surrounding the deliberate dying slaves, alive, into the sea. He specificities of the court document itself
drowning of 150 African slaves for reasoned that if the slaves died of that Philip’s attention dwells. Her poem
insurance monies in 1781, and ‘natural’ causes, the ship’s owners persists in a ‘belief that the story of
 Reviews 97

these African men, women, and children disconcerting reading experience: one
thrown overboard in an attempt to that asks us to radically rethink what The Language
collect insurance monies . . . is locked in reading is. John Mateer, with parallel
this text’, and particularly in its ‘many Both linguistically and visually,
Persian translation by Layli
silences’ (191). Philip’s fracturing of her Philip’s textual arrangements compel
source text makes these silences readers to find alternative modes of Rakhsha
everywhere apparent, such as in these textual negotiation, and by extension to Fremantle Arts Centre Press,
lines from Zong! #19: produce ways of reading events of the Karrinyup, 2009, pb
Zong ‘against/the grain’ (91), as Philip’s 11pp ISBN not available
there is no evidence own poem self-reflexively puts it. These
in the against of winds poems invite readers to Ex-White/Einmal-Weiss
the consequence of currents John Mateer, with parallel
or . . .drag the se a s for bo
ne for sou nd for b German translation by Ludwig
the apprehension of rains (34)
one song & sound of bon Roman Fleischer
e as if from the de Sisyphus, Austria, 2009, pb
By stating the inadmissibility of ‘winds’, ep . . . (158) 176pp ISBN 3 9019 6042 2 t15
‘currents’ and ‘rains’ as ‘evidence’, the
Reading here proceeds in a manner akin
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poem points to the very great gap The West: Australian

between material actualities and their
textual recording, a gap which makes the
specificities of the drowned Africans
to a marine archaeologist’s processes of
sifting the sea bed for material traces of
the past. Such fractured utterances as
Poems 1989 2009
John Mateer

/

these can be pieced together, but they

irrecoverable from a document in which Fremantle Press, Fremantle, 2010, pb
also enact profoundly disjointed forms
they exist only as ‘negroes’. As my 149pp ISBN 1 9213 6186 9 AUS$24.95
of syntax and sense that point to the
approximation of Philip’s textual layout www.fremantlepress.com.au
impossibility
/ and for Philip the
here indicates, such silences are made
palpable not only by linguistic means but undesirability
/ of compiling a coherent
via the visual arrangements of text on ‘story’ out of these textual debris.
I first came across John Mateer’s poetry
the page. Most of the poems that make Instead, what the poem offers is a
while looking into Michael Chapman’s
up the first section of Zong! feature physically tangible sense of what a ‘b/
magisterial anthology The New Century
minimal text and large areas of white one song &/sound of bon/e as if from
of South African Poetry (2002). At the
space which act as a haunting visual the deep’ might sound like, its
time I considered Mateer as an emerging
reminder of the absences which haunt phonemes truncated, scattered, muffled
voice in South African poetry, struck by
Philip’s source text. and intermingled, but palpable
nevertheless. the many similarities that the few poems
The four long poems and final evinced with my own reflections on
palimpsestual poem that follow, visiting South Africa as an adult after my
however, become increasingly visually
birth and childhood there in the 1960s
crowded and linguistically fragmented. Tim Woods and 70s. I confess to having had little
In these poems, Philip breaks apart
phrases and individual words to
Southern Barbarians idea then that Mateer was in fact a poet
whose work rested on such a great
anagramically create new combinations John Mateer
breadth of cultural experience. Although
in numerous languages, including some Zero Press, Johannesburg, 2007, pb he is now settled in his adopted country
West African languages. This process 68pp ISBN not available
of Australia, where he has garnered
creates a cacophony of different voices.
several national accolades such as the
It also radically destabilises linguistic The Republic of the
coherence, pursuing instead what Philip Centenary Medal for his contribution to
calls ‘semantic mayhem’ (193), a mode
East/A Republica do Australian literature, his work over the
of ‘not-telling’ the story that cannot be Oriente years demonstrates a strongly
told by refusing processes of linguistic internationalist perspective, based as it
John Mateer, translated into
sense-making. Readers will soon find is on periods spent in South Africa,
Portuguese by Andreia Portugal, China, the United States,
themselves swimming in a sea of words,
lost among currents and eddies of text Sarabando Macau, Sumatra, Japan and Canada. His
which momentarily coalesce into Association of Stories in Macau, poetry has appeared in anthologies,
snatches of narrative only to fracture Macau, 2008, pb chapbooks, pamphlets, and more
again or intermingle with other narrative 37pp ISBN 9 9937 8959 8 recently, two substantial collections,
fragments. This undoubtedly makes for a Ex-White (2009) and The West (2010).
 98 Reviews

This wide-ranging travel has not poetry does not display the hubris of a constantly attempting to query
merely led to poems written about those self satisfied entity with its own language. (Steep Stairs np)
cultures and countries; it has also knowledge and secure in its own
caused Mateer to make his observations identity. One recurring trope in the Whether it be lyricism or not, the
through a genuine cultural relativism, poems are mirrors and self-reflections in textuality of life pervades the poems,
which means that no single perspective mirrors, a doubling that makes for an from the formal marking of other
achieves dominance. Poems are unhinging of location and undermining peoples’ words by italics, to his
originally written in languages other of certitude: ‘By hearing his own words/ sensitivity to individual words and their
than English (for example, The Language and staring into the mirror/he learns the ideological repercussions such as ‘kaffir’
was originally written in Afrikaans, person/they think he is’ (‘On History’, in a South African context (Ex-White 76),
although the original is now lost and The West 31). Such re-flection causes or the quotation of other writers’ works
only exists in English and the Persian an ‘othering’ of the self, where one like Luı́s de Camões’ epic The Lusiads,
translation); different volumes have almost stands outside oneself and sees which underpin much of the Portuguese
facing translations in several different oneself as another body. As a poet focus of the volumes The Republic of the
languages (German, Portuguese); who repeatedly returns to the issues of East and Southern Barbarians.
snippets of languages other than English what constitutes rootedness and Elsewhere, poems are constructed as
constantly appear in the poems; while cultural belonging, Mateer’s work does part of a dialogue with other writers or
Mateer constantly refracts his immediate not consciously use the lexicon of people, such as casual acquaintances,
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perceptions through his own past ‘otherness’, of deferral, of more intimate friends and writers like
memories and the identities derived disembodiment and of disjunction. the Australian Mudrooroo or the South
from other cultures. He has remarked in Despite this, one constantly hears the African Tatamkhulu Afrika. A poem like
an interview, published in Steep Stairs clear echoes of poststructuralist ideas in ‘The Language’ devotes itself to
Literary Review Vol 1 (March 2010), that Mateer’s perspective on and conception searching for a medium to express love
of the uncertain and non-identical self. and intimacy and exploring the ways in
there are many voices in my poetry. . . . Bearing this deconstructive which different languages offer different
In some poems there is a single voice, in resonance in mind, it may come as no opportunities for communication and
other poems there is a voice that echoes surprise to find that this restless self- understanding. Questions are left
other voices, and in some there are searching is never unconnected to unanswered and attempts at
several distinct voices. language within Mateer’s work. communication are only transiently
Experiment with language occurs in successful, ‘a flash, a convincing/
Indeed, many of his poems quote other many poems, albeit not formal abstraction that eventually, quiet as
peoples’ voices, their words and programmatic experiment as in waves,/explodes’ (Language 10
/11).
overheard phrases. This poly-vocal surrealist or dadaist works, but Poetry is never a summation of rested
experience in Mateer’s poetry means experiment as a process of language as consciousness for Mateer, but an
that the reader is constantly engaged enquiry. When asked what he saw as the ongoing interrogation of the everyday
with a poetics that leads to ontological defining characteristics of his poetry in assumptions and preconceptions that
interrogations, where an ethical relation to language use, Mateer govern so many of our habitual actions
engagement with ‘other’ worlds forces a answered: and perceptions.
perpetual reconsideration of the self and Many of these features underpin the
its own certainties. So in ‘On the Train two substantial volumes The West and
I suppose the qualities that I would
from Cascais to Lisbon’ after recording Ex-White. The former is a volume
describe as being characteristic of my
the various images and views from a focussed on his adopted country of
work would be those after which I have
train window, the voice asks ‘Where am Australia, not just focussed on the west
strived
/ immediacy, a sense of
I? or, being the poet, Who am I?’ (The of Australia with all its stereotypical
physicality, an attention to linguistic and
Republic of the East 34). In the same surfers and gorgeous sunsets, but ‘the
psychic particularities and an awareness
volume, the poet interestingly conceives West’ with all the overtones of economic
of the philosophical
/ that is to say
of himself lying at the margins as an ethical
/ components of our everyday and post-Cold War ideological
undiscovered subject: ‘one day there experiences. These qualities are a result domination (all that is not ‘Third World’).
will be a poet/named John Mateer, just of my fascination with language as As Martin Harrison states in his very
as there was once,/off the edge of maps, action and embodiment. We are beings useful short introduction to the volume,
a monster/called Australia’ (36). not only full of ideas, but also full of Mateer does not shy away from placing
Whether this can also be read as a strange impulses and memories, all of his poems in terms of larger poetic
metaphor for a writer waiting to be which are constantly present in our day- histories, in which ‘experience is banal,
recognised, a terra incognita yet to be to-day life. In a way I suppose I would intuitive, momentary and yet is pivoted
discovered, or a fantasy of lurking see my work as being a kind of lyricism on a recognition of huge, ramifying
danger yet to be encountered, Mateer’s that, although it is in language, is histories of settlement and exploitation’
 Reviews 99

(The West 14). In a similar vein, Ex-White multiculturalism that has developed central to reflections on memory in
aims to collect all his South African since the post-Apartheid government. the fifteen songs that constitute
poems that circulated in informal Yet both these volumes also testify ‘In the Presence’ (The West 97
/104),
chapbooks over the years and to give to Mateer’s abiding interest in and the issues of skin colour and
responses to his return to South Africa process */ in particular, the process political freedom become key to the
and the changing political arena in that of remembering, the reasons for observations of post-Apartheid South
country over the past twenty to thirty forgetting things and the processes by Africa in Ex-White. In these respects,
years. These poems capture some of the which we gain epistemological Mateer’s poetry reflects a consciousness
archetypal images of South Africa in the knowledge. These concerns are insistently shaped by the impact
animals that inhabit safari parks, the frequently brought into contact with and vestiges of different forms of
hybrid globalism embedded in ethnic or racial political issues, so colonialism in different parts of the
contemporary Johannesburg and the that aboriginal Australians become world.
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