their own language

Out of all the different theoretical approaches we learnt about in first year English, the one that interested me most was post-colonial theory. Later on, I had other interests....Harold Bloom and the psychoanalytic approach, Bakhtin and his ideas about discourse, structuralism, post-structuralism and semiotics. 

The unit we did about Marxism was interesting. It wasn't what I expected. By saying that everything is political it eschewed any discussion of political ideology - in other words, any discussion of Marxism. The idea was that all of our interactions involve power dynamics. 

What interested me about post-colonial theory was the idea that power is at the margins not at the center, and then it was also fascinating learning about creole languages and how they represent the subversion of power. To write serious literature, the colonized have to write in the language of the colonizer, but informally, a creole language develops which is a fusion of the two languages. Then, at some point, people begin to write literature in the creole language, which is empowering because they are writing in their own language rather than someone else's.