Choice 评论
Brennan begins his pioneering study by describing and interpreting the recent emergence of Third World cosmopolitans, such as Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and Bharati Mukherjee, on the international literary scene. As intellectuals whose political awareness and literary consciousness have been shaped by their complex migrant and multicultural lives, Brennan argues, they share a vision made distinctive by their cosmopolitan hybridity; he then locates this shared vision in the broader contexts of "national form" and "anti-colonial liberalism." By singling out Rushdie as a representative of this new class of writers on the global stage, he proceeds to analyze Rushdie's major works and to assess their literary and cultural significance. Sophisticated and scholarly, yet free from crippling critical jargon, Brennan's work makes an outstanding contribution to cultural and postcolonial literary studies. By constructing an original and convincing theoretical framework for his close readings of Rushdie's densely allusive texts, he provides a brilliant introduction to one of the most creative and controversial writers of our time. Very highly recommended to all students and scholars of modern literature. -E. S. Nelson, SUNY College at Cortland