The African Presence in Caribbean Literature” Revisited

Recovering the Politics of Imagined Co-Belonging 1930–2005

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9250997
AutoresAlison Donnell (0000-0001-8722-6974, University of the West, autor de correspondencia), Donnell Donnell
Año2015
Volumen46
Número4
Páginas35
Fecha de publicación2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaResearch in African Literatures (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0034-5210 • E-ISSN: 1527-2044
EditorialIndiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2979/reseafrilite.46.4.35
OpenAlexW2196241549
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas10

Working outward from Edward Kamau Brathwaite's landmark 1974 essay, textquotedblleftThe African Presence in Caribbean Literature,textquotedblright this article explores the fuller history of the idea of Africa in anglophone Caribbean critical and literary works from the 1930s to the 2000s. It demonstrates that earlier, now forgotten Caribbean critics drew on imperfect and incomplete Caribbean literary imaginings of Africa to frame a counter-colonial politics of identity. The essay also brings back into view writings by Una Marson, Victor Stafford Reid, and Derek Walcott that expressed a different politics of solidarity based on the shared experience of colonial violence. Readings of recent literary works by Charlotte Williams and Nalo Hopkinson reveal the contemporary crafting of this relation around a heightened awareness of both presence and loss, history and imagination. Importantly, this gathering of sources and perspectives allows for an appreciation of the role that a reach toward Africa has played in articulations of Caribbeanness and its complex patterning of cultural co-belonging

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Caribbean art · Caribbean literature · Colonialism · Ethnology · Identity (music) · Literature · Political science · Politics · Relation (database) · Sociology · Solidarity · Anthropology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Gender Studies · History · Law · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Travel Writing and Literature