Via readings of novels by J.M. Coetzee, Timothy Mo and Salman Rushdie and the later poetry of W.B. Yeats, this book reveals how postcolonial writing can encourage the enlarged sense of moral and political responsibility needed to supplant ongoing forms of imperial violence with cosmopolitan institutions, relationships and ways of thinking.

藉由閱讀柯慈、毛翔青、魯西迪的小說和葉慈後期的詩，本書揭示了後殖民式寫作之所以能激起道德感以及政治責任，帝國的暴力必須被取代，思考的方式。