The problems of multicultural literature: a poly-chromic stained glass window or a broken mirror?

The collapse of colonial empires in the middle of the twentieth century is known to lead to the formation of a space on the territory of countries enslaved in the past, qualitatively new one in existential and epistemological meanings. Such a space was called postcolonial by representatives of the theory of postcolonialism formed in 1970-1980 (E. Said, H. Bhabha, G. Spivak, etc.) and this new concept offered a deeper understanding of such fundamental problems as migration and marginality, hybridity and new nationhood, transitional identity and heteroglossia as the most important narrative principle. The most important theme of the work of writers from the former colonies touches on the topic of the opposition between Western and traditional, local cultures. Thus, a phenomenon was gradually developing, and it was called multicultural literature, which mainly assumes a heterogeneous representation of cultural identity. The new multicultural literature reflects the atmosphere of a multi-ethnic environment, which gives the opportunity to live side by side to representatives of different nationalities with their cultural plurality, and also records the process of forming a hybrid identity, which gives a unique chance not only to go beyond the boundaries of their ethnic heritage, but also to develop a personality within a diverse cultural and historical experience. Among the multicultural authors are the winners of the Booker Prize (Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Amitav Ghosh) and the Nobel Prize (Vidiadhar Naipaul, John Maxwell Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Abdulrazak Gurnah), other prestigious literary prizes of the world, which proves the demand for the works of these writers among ordinary readers as well as literary critics.