Conclusion

Abstract

Postcolonial literature, once theorized as Third World literature, perhaps soon to be recategorized again as global literatures, or as the literatures of globalization, has had an important role to play in fostering market expansion in the publishing industry. Much of my study has been premised on this argument, yet its terms suggest a larger sphere of influence and dissemination than reality warrants. Over the past few decades literary fiction has become a viable, recognized marketing niche, and the incorporation of postcolonial writers has been an important part of its global entrenchment. Still, it continues to command nothing like the market share of mass-market romance fiction, or Japanese manga, or textbooks for those learning English.¹ Very few regular readers read literary fiction and an even smaller number read postcolonial literature. Those who do thus belong to a relatively specialized field, one that is not divided up into groups of corrupt cosmopolitan consumers and authentic engaged global citizens, or of canny producers and dehistoricizing, exoticizing readers. Or, more correctly, if they are so divided, scholars interested in the materiality of the postcolonial field have not yet completed the kind of research that would prove as much.