David Foster's Moonlite: Re-viewing history as satirical fable - towards a post-colonial past

Abstract

In Moonlite, David Foster marshals his militant satirical forces against the ideological and historicist excesses of 'official' history, his farcical reconstruction of colonial history becoming a subversive deconstruction of the story of the past — a 'mythistorical', anti-imperial critique that demands a reviewing of history. Significantly, it is Foster's satirical treatment of history which makes Moonlite such a forceful critique; and to assess the novel as a satire involves the consideration of certain formal characteristics so far overlooked in the appraisal of Foster's most impressive achievement to date.