Commonwealth Essays and Studies 28.1 (Textual, Contextual, Extra-Textual) focuses on how the postcolonial text has operated a reversal of semiotic systems linked to specific contexts, bearing witness to a decolonizing process through the second half of the twentieth century. Texts and extra-texts are mirror and play a crucial part in the (re)construction of identity in the new global context. The essays address issues related to the textual and extra-textual representation of this situation through works that involve a questioning of, or an opposition or adjustment to, contexts inherited from colonization and subjugation.