What is postcolonial literature?

As the term indicates, the idea of postcolonial literature
is reflective of life after colonial rule in nations that were controlled by parent
nations.  The idea of how life and identity is constructed after colonialism is rich
with ideas, and is a basic element of postcolonial literature.  The genre seeks to
examine how the past influences the present and the future, or, in a more postmodern
sense, how there is not such a clear distinction of time.  The issues of racial identity
plays a large role in postcolonial literature.  At the same time, postcolonial
literature seeks to assess how the identity of nations that are controlled and how the
identity of people in colonized nations could parallel one another.  At the same time,
postcolonial literature is intensely constructed on the idea of what constitutes purity
in one's identity.  For example, in postcolonial literature, the idea of how much of
one's national or individual identity is contingent on the parent nation or the freed
one is extremely important to the genre.