Timothy Mo’s An Insular Possession: The Fictionalization of History

Abstract

An Insular Possession, by Hong Kong-born British novelist Timothy Mo, is the first of a series of novels that question Western attempts to impose a colonial frame of mind across Asia. Characteristically unconventional, Mo employs two genres seemingly opposed to play with a readership that is convinced that his novel is but a historiographical account. His artful mix of formal, rhetorical and semantic devices contrive to create such illusion while challenging Western imperialist rhetorics.