The Return of the Native

The book, The Return of the Native: Challenges and Prospects by Dr Sajitha, places in proper perspective the desire of the colonised people in finding a voice and an identity in reclaiming their own past. It offers fresh insight into how the colonised make an emotional return to the pre-colonial version of their own nation, culture and tradition rejecting the western and the modern Eurocentric values. This study brings into sharp focus Fanon's concept of cultural resistance and violence triggered by dependency complex. The book presents the different dimensions that the return motif acquires in the postcolonial context. The novels selected for study are The Serpent and the Rope by Raja Rao (India), A Dream in Hawaii by Bhabhani Bhattacharya (India), The Strange Case of Billy Biswas by Arun Joshi (India), Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya) and Water with Berries by George Lamming (West Indies).