This volume brings together prominent writers from the English, French, Spanish, and Dutch speaking Caribbean in an examination of creolization and its impact upon the region's literary production. It is especially noteworthy for the broad spectrum of Caribbean nationalities it includes: writers from Cuba, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Panama, Suriname, and Tobago. Together, they are engaged in redefining Caribbean identity and esthetics, and their reflections on this process trace the evolution of a dynamic regional literature and identity out of materials displaced amid the movement of colonial empires and nationalistic and economic upheavals.
The collection addresses a number of controversial issues, among them the survival of racism in mestizaje cultures of Hispanic nations of the Caribbean, the opposing theories of the history and development of Papiamento and Haitian Creole, and the role of Creole languages in the production of consciousness and literature. Contents Antillean Journey, by Daniel Maximin Part I: Creolization and the Creative Imagination Creoleness: The Crossroads of a Civilization? by Wilson Harris The Caribbean: Marvelous Cradle-Hammock and Painful Cornucopia, by Carlos Guillermo Wilson Who's Afraid of the Winti Spirit? by Astrid H. Roemer Three Words toward Creolization, by Antonio Benitez-Rojo Dominicanyorkness: A Metropolitan Discovery of the Triangle, by Sherezada (Chiqui) Vicioso Where Are All the Others? by Erna Brodber A Brief History of My Country, by Lourdes Vazquez
Part II: Creolization, Literature, and the Politics of Language Writing and Creole Language Politics: Voice and Story, by Merle Collins The Stakes of Creolite, by Ernest Pepin and Raphael Confiant Creolite without Creole Language? By Maryse Conde The Victory of the Concubines and the Nannies, by Frank Martinus Arion The Process of Creolization in Haiti and the Pitfalls of the Graphic Form, by Jean Metellus Race, Space, and the Poetics of Moving, by M. Nourbese Philip
Afterword, by Yanick Lahens
Kathleen M. Balutansky is associate professor of English at Saint Michael's College and author of The Novels of Alex La Guma and of several articles on Caribbean women writers. Marie-Agnes Sourieau is assistant professor of French at Fairfield University and author of articles on Francophone Caribbean literature in Callaloo, French Review, and elsewhere.
