The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures by Bill Ashcroft
Published 1989 · 95,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures to read?
The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures scores 46 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 70 out of 100
- Introduces a specialist postcolonial vocabulary; terms are defined but require sustained engagement.
- Sentence structure: 70 out of 100
- Abstraction: 80 out of 100
- The theoretical framework for post-colonial textual practice is built from first principles.
- Information density: 80 out of 100
- Covers a vast range of national literatures and theoretical positions in a compressed space.
- Narrative indirection: 30 out of 100
- Primarily definitional and argumentative; the book is organized to establish and apply its framework.
- Symbolic density: 50 out of 100
- Language itself — abrogated, appropriated — is the central symbolic-political object.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Critical irony is directed at the imperial assumptions embedded in the English literary tradition.
- Resolution withholding: 30 out of 100
- The theoretical framework is stated clearly; the book pursues definite conceptual conclusions.
- Structural complexity: 60 out of 100
- Organized by theoretical problem rather than by national literature; chapters build on one another.
How The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures is regarded
The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures holds a literary regard score of 52 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.