Representations of and attitudes towards Britishness in Paul Theroux’s Kowloon Tong (1997), Robert Elegant’s Last Year in Hong Kong (1997) and Xu Xi’s The Unwalled City: a Novel of Hong Kong (2001)

Abstract

This thesis examines three works that employ a 1997 narrative, namely Paul Theroux’s Kowloon Tong (1997), Robert Elegant’s Last Year in Hong Kong (1997) and Xu Xi’s The Unwalled City: a Novel of Hong Kong (2001). By utilising the strategies of the postcolonial theoretical framework, particularly ideas put forward by Wilson Harris, the representations of Britishness and, more broadly, the West, will be examined. Based on the historical context, I hypothesise that negative as well as positive representations of Britishness can be found in all three works. This thesis will shed light on how previously colonised cultures ‘write back’ to their coloniser, and how the position of Hong Kong as a colony of Britain influences the nature of representations of Britishness and attitudes towards Britain.