The Quest for Postcolonial Utopia is a critical introduction to utopian and dystopian fiction written in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Africa, and India. It outlines the development of utopian writing over the last thirty years and analyzes the relationship between postcolonial and utopian issues foregrounded in these works. Based on a comparative approach that takes into account the different traditions the texts are derived from, this book examines the function of utopian alternatives and dystopian anxieties in the writings of a wide range of well-known authors such as Janet Frame, David Ireland, J M Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Peter Carey, Rodney Hall, Buchi Emecheta, Margaret Atwood, Glenda Adams, John Cranna, Suniti Namjoshi, Mike Nicol, Ben Okri, Gerald Murnane, and Timothy Findley. The Quest for Postcolonial Utopia is a critical introduction to utopian and dystopian fiction written in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Africa, and India. It outlines the development of utopian writing over the last thirty years and analyzes the relationship between postcolonial and utopian issues foregrounded in these works. Based on a comparative approach that takes into account the different traditions the texts are derived from, this book examines the function of utopian alternatives and dystopian anxieties in the writings of a wide range of well-known authors such as Janet Frame, David Ireland, J M Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Peter Carey, Rodney Hall, Buchi Emecheta, Margaret Atwood, Glenda Adams, John Cranna, Suniti Namjoshi, Mike Nicol, Ben Okri, Gerald Murnane, and Timothy Findley. Acknowledgments vii Introducing Postcolonial Utopia 1(10) Criteria for a Comparison of Postcolonial Utopian Fiction 11(20) Changing Patterns of Future Projection in Postcolonial Fiction 31(24) Decolonizing Utopia: The Emergence of Cross-cultural and Regional Perspectives in Postcolonial Future Fiction 55(34) Women of the Future: Feminist Issues in Postcolonial Utopian Fiction 89(18) Treasurehouses of the Unexpected: Magical Realism and the Transformation of Dystopian Space in Postcolonial Fiction 107(26) The Speaking Mirror: Cultural and Textual Hybridity as Utopian Difference 133(34) Conclusion 167(8) Works Cited 175(18) Index 193