Timothy Mo, The Redundancy of Courage

Elaine Ho (University of Hong Kong)

Ed. by John Thieme, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1991

Places

Hong Kong (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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The Redundancy of Courage

(1991) is narrated in the first-person. This is a crucial issue since the narrator, Adolph Ng, is participant and survivor of the political upheavals in the fictional island of Danu, and the novel is supposedly his eye-witness account of what happened. Danu, which distinctly resembles East Timor, is a former Portuguese colony, and after independence, the members of the anti-colonial movement become leaders of the new nation. But this period of autonomy is short-lived; Danu’s powerful neighbour, the

Malai

, quickly moves in to fill the space vacated by European imperialism. After a period of guerilla resistance, the Danuese leadership is decimated as the nation ceases to exist; Ng, a lone survivor, goes into exile.

Malai

militaristic aggression has the implicit…

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1289 words

Citation: Ho, Elaine. "The Redundancy of Courage". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 February 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7551, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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