Hypertext and Postcolonial Literature, Criticism, and Theory

Postcolonial literatures, criticism, and theory have numerous important relations both to hypertext as a medium and to hypertext as a theoretical paradigm.

• Gives voice to colonized peoples, permitting them to "write back."

• Evades censorship by local authorities.

• Historical relations: Writing, print, and the culture of the book in many countries accompanied colonialism and disrupted indigenous societies, as did other forms of foreign technology. According to McLuhan, the arrival of "phonetic literacy is, socially and politically, probably the most radical explosion than can occur in any social structure" (Understanding Media, 55).

• Collisions of cultures of orality with those of writing and print provide subject of much postcolonial African literature.

• Hypertext provides a useful paradigm for postcoloniality.

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