Empire in Decline

What if the story of the empire's collapse wasn't told through battles and treaties, but through irony, absurdity, and the quiet unraveling of imperial delusion? This book begins with that question and builds an original reassessment of the British Empire's demise through the lens of one of modern literature's sharpest satirists, J.G. Farrell. The book offers a focused literary analysis of The Empire Trilogy: Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur, and The Singapore Grip, as a coherent, ironic counter-narrative to triumphalist or resistance-centered accounts of decolonization. Rather than foregrounding the colonized or grand historical moments of collapse, this book turns inward to examine the self-deceptions, ideological stagnation, and psychological unraveling of the colonizers themselves.

Prashant Maurya is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Ranchi, India. He holds a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee and a Master's degree from Banaras Hindu University, India. His research and teaching interests include Popular Media and Culture, Postcolonial Literature, and Cultural Studies. He has published in leading humanities journals, including South East Asia Research, South Asian Popular Culture, and Rethinking History. He serves as an Editorial Board Member for Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (Springer Nature) and is a Board Member of the Historical Fictions Research Network, UK. In addition, he regularly reviews for reputed academic publishers.