| Sumario: | Much of the scholarly research produced on Emilio Salgari (1862--1911)--the creator of innumerable adventure novels featuring memorable characters such as the Malaysian pirate Sandokan and his imperturbable sidekick Yanez--has been dedicated to releasing him from the restrictive label of writer of young adult fiction, or, more recently, to measuring the degree of Orientalism or anti-colonialism in his portrayal of "exotic" locales and peoples. While not discarding the value of these approaches, this essay seeks to move in a different direction, and to examine instead the ways in which, by setting many of his stories in the Orient, and--in the case of the Pirates of Malaysia series--specifically in India, Salgari is able to interrogate questions of nobility, honour, loyalty, love, and morality.
|
|---|