When postcolonial studies made its debut in Western academes, it was, to use Stuart Hall's words, 'the bearer of such powerful unconscious investments-a sign of desire for some, and equally for others, a sign of danger'. It is a similar reaction of apprehension and excitement that Creative Writing generates in the Asian Pacific academes and cultures, especially in countries with a colonial history. This essay explores some of the difficulties facing the introduction of Creative Writing in the

more »

... gion, namely how it may be perceived as another form of Western cultural imperialism. It proposes a corollary study of transnational writers as a mediating influence and suggests that what Jahan Ramazani calls 'transnational poetics' may help resolve the binaries of colonial/postcolonial, east/west, local/global, and uncover new ways of looking at borders for writers/readers in the region.