Sharae Deckard is a Lecturer in World Literature at the School of English, Drama, and Film at University College Dublin.

In this volume, Deckard analyzes authors such as Malcolm Lowry, Leonard Woolf, Juan Rulfo, Wilson Harris, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and Romesh Gunesekera to make a materialist study of the relation between paradise myths and the ideologies and economies of colonialism and neo-imperialism in literature from Mexico, Zanzibar and Sri Lanka.

Acknowledgments Introduction: Paradise and Modernity Part One Chapter 1: Gold-land of "Wild Surmise": Mexico, Colonialism, and Informal Imperialism Chapter 2: "Perverse Paradiso": Malcolm Lowry and the Writing of Modern Mexico Part Two Chapter 3: Dark Paradise, Lost Ophir: Colonial Imaginaries of East Africa Chapter 4: Paradise Rejected: Abdulrazak Gurnah and the Swahili World Part Three Chapter 5: Taprobane, Serendib, Adam's Peak: Ceylon as "Paradise of Dharma" Chapter 6: "Make Your Own Eden": Violence, Myth and Ecology in Romesh Gunesekera Conclusion: Revenants Notes Bibliography Index