Alien-nation and repatriation : translating identity in Anglophone Caribbean literature / Patricia Joan Saunders.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Saunders, Patricia Joan, 1968-

Series:

Caribbean studies (Lanham, Md.)

Caribbean studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Caribbean literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Caribbean literature.

Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature.

Physical Description:

xv, 181 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2007]

Summary:

Alien-Nation and Repatriation examines emergence and transformations in representations of national identity in Anglophone Caribbean literary traditions. Beginning with the short fiction of C. L. R. James, Alfred Mendes, and Albert Gomes, this study examines the extent to which gender, migration, and female sexuality frame the earliest representations of Caribbean identity in literature by West Indian authors. The study develops chronologically to examine the works of George Lamming, Paule Marshall, Erna Brodber, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Elizabeth Nunez. Analyzing the intimate links among gender, migration, exile, and nationalism, Alien-Nation and Repatriation emphasizes how alienation functions to marginalize women from discourses of citizenship and belonging that are integral to nationalist literature. Saunders argues that the "return" for Caribbean women writers is not focused on reclaiming the nation-state, but rather a closer examination of discourses on Caribbean identity aimed at engaging the selves that have been disciplined, through form and content, into silence in Caribbean literature.

Contents:

Introduction: Imagining the Impossible 1

1 The Trinidad Renaissance: Building a Nation, Building a Self 25

2 The Pleasures/Privileges of Exile: Re/covering Race and Sexuality in The Pleasures of Exile and Water with Berries 57

3 Gender and Genre: The Logic of Language and the Logistics of Identity 87

4 Routes and Roots: Re(in)scribing the Meaning of Home 113

5 Boundaries, Borders, and the Unhoused: Re-Routing Black Identity in North America 131

Conclusion: Mapping Meaning and Identity 153.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-173) and index.

ISBN:

9780739114698

0739114697

9780739114704

0739114700

OCLC:

156845848