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Notes:

1. With the spread of Western colonialism from Europe and North America to Asia, Africa, and South America also came the spread of its by-product; Western modernism.
2. Though early criticisms were leveled at former colonial subjects who wrote in the colonizer's language since such writing was considered to reflect "impoverished" experiences, more recent evaluations point to the ways that the writings of former colonial subjects have enriched European languages.
3. Though social-realist movements varied considerably within Chinese, Indian, and Soviet contexts, in general they denounced the bourgeois and colonialist values expounded in Western art and literature.
4. Though English-language literatures are well known outside India, literatures in regional languages such as Kannada, Urdu, Sindhi, Bengali, Hindi, and Tamil represent other aspects of Indian life.
5. The literary traditions of the diverse countries that the West calls "the Middle East" reflect the multiple histories and cultural traditions of the region.
6. In addition to experiences of Western colonialism in Africa, African writers also address issues related to the slave trade and to the African diaspora.
7. The generally political nature of magical realism in South American writing was often missed by earlier generations of Western readers, who were too amazed by the imaginative creativity of magical realism.

Text:
* blue words within the text indicate important notes to remember

1. With the spread of Western colonialism from Europe and North America to Asia, Africa, and South America also came the spread of its by-product; Western modernism.Colonization and decolonization were generally savage (to use a colonialist term) from the perspective of colonial and postcolonial subjects. The intrusion of colonial politics in the daily lives of individuals is addressed in the form and content of works by Tagore, Senghor, Mahfouz, Achebe, Walcott, Soyinka, and Goodison. Other including writers—Premchand, CÈsaire, al-Hakim, Neruda, Devi, El Saadawi, and Yehoshua—responded to social, political, and economic concerns at a regional or local level.
2. Though early criticisms were leveled at former colonial subjects who wrote in the colonizer's language, since writing was considered to reflect "impoverished" experiences, more recent evaluations point to the ways that the writings of former colonial subjects have enriched European languages. Works by writers such as Achebe, Soyinka, and Rushdie challenge efforts to interpret meaning according to conventional reading strategies that largely hold for many works produced by their European and North American contemporaries.
3. In addition to groups of people who were directly colonized, others were affected indirectly or by internal developments. The formation of the League of Left-Wing Writers in 1930 saw the emergence of new conservatism in response to Western modernism. Though social-realist movements varied considerably within the context of Chinese, Indian, and Soviet contexts, in general they denounced the bourgeois and colonialist values expounded in Western art and literature. Not all writers from these regions opposed Western values at the turn of the twentieth century. Chinese writers who traveled abroad adapted literary models of the modern Western tradition. Japanese writers such as Tanizaki reinvented Japanese traditions and conventions in terms of Western traditions and conventions.
4. In India, the British colonial education system, which had been in place since the early 1800s, made the colonizer's language—English—part of public life. English continues to be the language of government there though over two hundred languages are spoken in India. Though English-language literatures are well known outside India, literatures in regional languages such as Kannada, Urdu, Sindhi, Bengali, Hindi, and Tamil represent other aspects of Indian life.
5. The literary traditions of the diverse countries that the West calls "the Middle East" reflect the multiple histories and cultural traditions of the region. Pre-Islamic, Judaic, Islamic, and Christian traditions are as much, if not more, a part of twentieth-century literatures as are Western modern forms such as the novel.
6. In addition to experiences of Western colonialism in Africa, African writers also address issues related to the slave trade and to the African diaspora. At universities in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, black intellectuals from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States came together to articulate positive images of blackness. Out of the négritude movement came important interventions in both politics and literature.
7. South American literature is often associated with magical realism, a mixture of fantasy and realism, made popular by authors such as García Márquez and Rulfo. The generally political nature of magical realism in South American writing was often missed by earlier generations of Western readers, who were too amazed by the imaginative creativity of magical realism. Simultaneously, writers resisted Western literary conventions and wrote in regional styles.