Kipling’s Imperial Boy: Adolescence and Cultural Hybridity 2000th Edition

‘Don Randall’s ‘Kipling’s Imperial Boy’ is an important contribution to

Kipling studies and to the area of colonial discourse analysis more

generally. Historically sensitive and theoretically aware, it provides a

persuasive and original mapping of theories of cultural hybridity onto

discourses of adolescence – and vice versa. In a series of close readings

of ‘The Jungle Books’, ‘Stalky and Co’ and ‘Kim’, Randall ably

demonstrates that Kipling’s imperial boys are liminal figures who both

subvert and reinforce the borders between cultures and who both counter

and confirm the masculinism of colonial epistemology. ‘Kipling’s Imperial

Boy’ is further evidence of the continuing recuperation of Kipling as a

complex and important artist and thinker.’ – Bart Moore Gilbert, University of London

‘…a very impressive piece of work.’ – Laurence Kitzan, Victorian Studies

DON RANDALL is Assistant Professor of English at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. He has published several articles in scholarly journals, including Texas Studies in Literature and Language and Novel.