Nagai, Kaori

PERSONAL:

Education: Holds a Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—England. Office—School of English, Rutherford College, University of Kent, Canterbury Kent CT2 7NX, England. E-mail—k.nagai@kent.ac.uk.

CAREER:

Writer, historian, and educator. University of Kent, Rutherford College, Kent, England, honorary research associate and lecturer in English.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Leverhulme Trust grant.

WRITINGS:

"On the Strength of a Likeness": Kipling and the Analogical Connections between India and Ireland, University of Kent at Canterbury (Canterbury, Kent, Engand), 2001.

Empire of Analogies: Kipling, India, and Ireland, Cork University Press (Cork, Ireland), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals and journals, including Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Australasian Victorian Studies Journal, and Feminist Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer, historian, and educator Kaori Nagai is a scholar whose work focuses on postcolonial studies. An honorary research associate and lecturer in English at the University of Kent in England, Nagai studies the postcolonial history of India, Ireland, and other relevant countries. Among her other research topics are the Esperanto language movement in Britain, critical theory, psychoanalysis, and feminism, she notes on the University of Kent School of English Web site.

In Empire of Analogies: Kipling, India, and Ireland, Nagai examines the work of noted journalist, poet, and novelist Rudyard Kipling to consider the repeated pairing of India and Ireland in postcolonial thinking in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nagai looks at Kipling's work and concludes that the representation of the British Empire rested strongly on comparisons and analogies made between India and Ireland and their experiences with colonial rule. The book is divided into three chronological periods: the 1880s, during which Kipling lived in India; the 1890s, during which Kipling became famous on an international scale; and the Boer War years at the turn of the century. Throughout, Nagai analyzes Kipling's approach to Irish participation in British colonial politics, and considers the place of Irish, Indian, and Boer nationalism within the framework of the British Empire.

Kipling, noted a writer on the Stylus Publishing Web site, "was keenly aware of the fact that Indian and Irish nationalists drew analogies between each other's colonial situation to make the case for self-government and British misrule." Nagai considers Irish characters in Kipling's early works, noting how important their participation and presence was to the author's representation of British rule in India. Over time, however, Ki- pling's portrayal of the British Empire changed as he grew further apart from India, and as British imperialism itself suffered setbacks in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Nagai makes a particularly detailed study of the title character of Kipling's novel Kim, considering how the character is represented as a voiceless Irish expatriate, one who does not long for his home and who represents the essence of British colonialism in India.

The Stylus Publishing Web site writer noted that Nagai's book would be of interest to both scholars and students of Kipling's work, of postcolonial history and literature, and of nineteenth-century Irish history. "This book makes a major contribution to post-colonialism studies in general and to the comparative study of Ireland and India in particular," commented a reviewer for Read Ireland Book Reviews.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, October, 2007, D.H. Stewart, review of Empire of Analogies: Kipling, India, and Ireland, p. 283.

ONLINE

Read Ireland Book Reviews,http://www.readireland.ie/ (March 31, 2007), review of Empire of Analogies.

Stylus Publishing Web site,http://styluspub.com/ (February 4, 2008).

University of Kent School of English Web site,http://www.kent.ac.uk/english/ (February 4, 2008), biography of Kaori Nagai.