Norms of Ambivalence in Setting, Plot and Point-of-View in the Anti-Realist World of Salman Rushdie and Ben Okri

“Inbetweeness”, a cardinal source of strength and weakness of the colonized writer, is an indispensable element in postcoloniality, emphasizing its hybrid nature. Leaning on contextual equivocation, to the “periphery”, seems to be an antidote to the certainty that the “centre” ennobles with evangelistic vigour. The transcendence-driven postcolony exploits the lithe structure of the novel genre to essay dismantling literary frontiers to reflect ideological vagueness and obscurity, which are antipodal to Western bourgeois lucidity. This article, against this background, explicates how Salman Rushdie and Ben Okri, build setting, plot and point-of-view to stem the tide of cultural subordination through imaginative contrarieties.