Haiti unbound : a spiralist challenge to the postcolonial canon / by Kaiama L. Glover.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Glover, Kaiama L., 1972- author.

Series:

Contemporary French and francophone cultures ; 15.

Contemporary French and francophone cultures ; 15

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Frankétienne--Criticism and interpretation.

Frankétienne.

Fignolé, Jean-Claude--Criticism and interpretation.

Fignolé, Jean-Claude.

Philoctète, René--Criticism and interpretation.

Philoctète, René.

Haitian fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

Haitian fiction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxiv, 262 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Historically and contemporarily, politically and literarily, Haiti has long been relegated to the margins of the so-called 'New World.' Marked by exceptionalism, the voices of some of its most important writers have consequently been muted by the geopolitical realities of the nation's fraught history. In Haiti Unbound, Kaiama L. Glover offers a close look at the works of three such writers: the Haitian Spiralists Frankétienne, Jean-Claude Fignolé, and René Philoctète. While Spiralism has been acknowledged by scholars and regional writer-intellectuals alike as a crucial contribution to the French-speaking Caribbean literary tradition, the Spiralist ethic-aesthetic not yet been given the sustained attention of a full-length study. Glover's book represents the first effort in any language to consider the works of the three Spiralist authors both individually and collectively, and so fills an astonishingly empty place in the assessment of postcolonial Caribbean aesthetics. Touching on the role and destiny of Haiti in the Americas, Haiti Unbound engages with long-standing issues of imperialism and resistance culture in the transatlantic world. Glover's timely project emphatically articulates Haiti's regional and global centrality, combining vital 'big picture' reflections on the field of postcolonial studies with elegant close-reading-based analyses of the philosophical perspective and creative practice of a distinctively Haitian literary phenomenon. Most importantly perhaps, the book advocates for the inclusion of three largely unrecognized voices in the disturbingly fixed roster of writer-intellectuals that have thus far interested theorists of postcolonial (Francophone) literature. Providing insightful and sophisticated blueprints for the reading and teaching of the Spiralists' prose fiction, Haiti Unbound will serve as a point of reference for the works of these authors and for the singular socio-political space out of and within which they write.

Contents:

Pt. I. Introduction : the consequences of ex-centricity

pt. II. Shifty/shifting characters. Beings without borders

Zombies become warriors

Productive schizophrenia

pt. III. Space-time of the spiral. Haiti unbound?

Present-ing the past

Haiti in the whirl/world

pt. IV. Showing vs. telling. The stylistics of possession

Framing the folk

Schizophonic solutions

pt. V. Conclusions : no lack of language.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-254) and index.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode

ISBN:

9781781386705

1781386706

9781846316500

1846316502

OCLC:

732956423

Access Restriction:

Unrestricted online access