In Arcadia (2002) marks out Ben Okri as a transnational writer, in the sense in which the term has been proposed by Andreas Huyssen. Huyssen sees the concept of transnationalism as a way of overcoming the false dichotomy between the local and the global, counteracting and complicating the “argument that only local culture or culture

local is good, authentic and resistant, whereas global cultural forms must be condemned as manifestations of cultural imperialism, i.e., Americanization” (13). In

, Lao, an intellectual, celebrity presenter and a black human being (112), narrates part of the story of the making of a documentary film about the idea of Arcadia; at other times he is the Jamesian “reflector” of a third-person narrative.

The search for this elusive world of

1975 words

Citation: Ringrose, Christopher. "In Arcadia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 January 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23026, accessed 26 November 2024.]