Autofiction and advocacy in the francophone Caribbean / Renée Larrier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Larrier, Renée Brenda, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Caribbean literature (French)--History and criticism.

Caribbean literature (French).

Autobiographical fiction, French--History and criticism.

Autobiographical fiction, French.

First person narrative--History and criticism.

First person narrative.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 185 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Gainesville, Florida : University Press of Florida, 2020.

Summary:

"Very refreshing in the understanding of Caribbean literature . . . Succeeds in blending close readings of specific texts with a constant awareness of the larger picture. . . . From a theoretical complexity that calls on Glissant, Fanon, Ngugi, Benito-Rojo among others, this profoundly human exploration of autofiction and advocacy in Francophone Caribbean literature study does not succumb to the temptation of theory; that is, she does not demand texts illustrate a rigid theoretical frame; the reverse is true throughout the study."--Cilas Kemedjio, University of Rochester Larrier breaks new ground in analyzing first-person narratives by five Francophone Caribbean writers--Joseph Zobel, Patrick Chamoiseau, Gisele Pineau, Edwidge Danticat, and Maryse Conde--that manifest distinctive interaction among narrators, protagonists, characters, and readers through a layering of voices, languages, time, sources, and identities. Employing the Martinican combat dance--danmye--as a trope, the author argues that these narratives can be read as testimony to the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and patriarchy that denied Caribbean people their subjectivity. In chapters devoted to Zobel, Chamoiseau, Pineau, Danticat, and Conde--who come from Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Haiti--Larrier probes the presence, construction, and strategy of the first-person narrator, which sometimes shifts within the text itself. Providing a perspective different from European travel literature, these texts deliberately position the "I" as a witness and/or performer who articulates experiences ignored or misinterpreted by sojourners' more widely circulated chronicles. While not purporting to speak for others, the "I" is concerned with transmitting what he or she saw, heard, experienced, or endured, therefore disrupting conventional representations of the Francophone Caribbean. Moreover, in modeling authenticity and agency, autofiction is also a form of advocacy.

Contents:

Intro

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction. Caribbean Identity Poetics: Subjectivity, I-mage, Collage

1. "To Get Around the Rule of Silence": Performing Masculinity as Détour

2. "I Spy": Curators, Translators, and In-trust Narrators

3. Secrets and Silence, Displacement and Délivrance

4. Travelers' Trees and Umbilical Cords: Embodying Dyaspora, Renegotiating Home

5. A Roving I: Autofiction(s) and Subversions

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [167]-180) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-8130-6558-5

OCLC:

1147884839