Imperial Entanglements and Literature in English

Britain's imperial involvement has been extremely problematic for the people affected by them over the centuries but it has also been mostly productive for literature in English. Whether in mainstream English literature or the literatures written in English in the once colonised regions, works of lasting value have been created right from the time England began to acquire an overseas empire in the seventeenth century through its consolidation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and eventual dismantling in the twentieth century. This paper traces the impact of the acquisition and consolidation of the British empire on creative writing in the English language over the centuries and till decolonisation began. It goes on to show, too, how decades after the end of the empire both British writers and nonBritish writers from the decolonised regions are continuing to use the English language effectively to write imaginatively about issues directly or indirectly connected to the rise and fall of the British empire and its lingering presence in our time.