Description
Book SynopsisInitially created to counteract broadcasts from Nazi Germany, the BBC’s Eastern Service became a cauldron of global modernism and an unlikely nexus of artistic exchange. Daniel Ryan Morse demonstrates the significance of the Eastern Service for global Anglophone literature and literary broadcasting.
Trade ReviewPacked with rich findings, this fascinating study offers invaluable new insights into the far-reaching impact of the BBC's Eastern Service as laboratory for the evolution of a global and transnational vision of modernity, a vision still reverberating across cultural, literary, and media studies today. -- Susheila Nasta, coeditor of
The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British WritingWith archival surprises and deft close readings,
Radio Empire shows how the BBC’s Eastern Service influenced the development of Anglophone fiction. Including treatments of canonical figures such as E. M. Forster and Mulk Raj Anand, as well as important but understudied novelists, such as Venu Chitale and Attia Hosain, Morse reveals how the technical constraints and possibilities of radio broadcasting impacted the formal conventions of English-language writing. It is an exciting contribution to colonial and postcolonial literary studies. -- Peter J. Kalliney, author of
Modernism in a Global ContextWith his searching examination of the role of the BBC's Eastern Service in the development of the global Anglophone novel, Daniel Ryan Morse fills an important gap in literary radio studies. Wedding the insights of postcolonial studies and media theory,
Radio Empire capably establishes the salience of transnational and intermedial exchange to the literary history of the mid-twentieth century. -- Debra Rae Cohen, coeditor of
Broadcasting ModernismRadio Empire makes a substantial contribution to both radio studies and study of literary modernism . . . Morse provides deeply researched readings that change one's understanding not only of individual texts but also of the shape and scope of literary and media histories. Morse navigates multiple social contexts to make sometimes surprising and always convincing remarks about how politically progressive these literary and radio texts turn out to be . . . Essential. * Choice *
Radio Empire pushes against the siloed ways in which literary modernism is often studied, with writers from the Global North and those of South Asian heritage assessed separately. Here, conceptually and methodologically, Morse’s approach is fresh and ambitious . . . [this book] reveals the profound nature of the impact the BBC Eastern Service had upon the printed and broadcast word, and how intertwined the relationship between the two was. * LSE Review of Books *
This is an important book for students of Indian Anglophone literature but is also a useful contribution to the history of BBC Radio 3 and the role of the BBC’s external broadcasts. * Radio User *
An excellent historical account of an understudied part of the BBC . . . [This book] will undoubtedly be a great tool for any scholar working on broadcasting history, postcolonial studies, and post-war literary history. * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
Radio Empire is an important work of scholarship, offering a considered analysis of the relationship between radio and literature in the war and post-war years. * The Orwell Foundation Blog *
Morse’s compelling account of the intermedial relationship between radio and the novel in the mid-twentieth century is a valuable contribution to scholarship of literary radio, modernism, and postcolonial studies. * Modernism/modernity *
A welcome archival counterpart to works by Eric Hayot, Pheng Cheah, and Emily Apter. * NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: Finnegans Waves: James Joyce Between the BBC and 2RN
2: Reviewing Some Books: E. M. Forster as Blind Uncle
3: The End of Empire: Mulk Raj Anand’s Comparative Modernisms
4: Intimate and Kaleidosonic Styles: Attia Hosain, Venu Chitale, and the Hybrid Novel
Epilogue: The Eastern Service in the Era of Decolonization
Notes
Bibliography
Index
