ENGL 4150: Studies in Caribbean Literature (Morrison)

Here for the first time in a single volume is Edward Brathwaite's Caribbean trilogy - Rights of Passage, Masks, and Islands - a brilliant exploration of the predicament of the contemporary New World Negro. Through the tension of jazz/folk rhythm, through historical flashbacks, and excursions to Europe, New York and Africa, the poet interweaves the past and present of his Caribbean homeland - its natural beauty, its violent history, the values that sustain its people - into a vigorous anddistinctive poetic statement.

On a deserted mountain road in the Dominican Republic in 1960, three young women from a pious Catholic family were assassinated after visiting their husbands who had been jailed as suspected rebel leaders. The Mirabal sisters, thus martyred, became mythical figures in their country, where they are known as Las Mariposas (the butterflies). Three decades later, Julia Alvarez, daughter of the Dominican Republic and author of the acclaimed How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, brings the Mirabal sisters back to life in this extraordinary novel. Each of the sisters speaks in her own voice; beginning as young girls in the 1940s, their stories vary from hair ribbons to gun-running to prison torture. Their story is framed by their surviving sister who tells her own tale of suffering and dedication to the memory of Las Mariposas. This inspired portrait of four women is a haunting statement about the human cost of political oppression, and is destined to take its place alongside Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Allende's The House of the Spirits as one of the great 20th-century Latin American novels.

Carnival takes on social and political importance in this recognized classic. The people of the shantytown Calvary Hill, usually invisible to the rest of society, join the throng and flaunt their neighborhood personas in masquerade during Carnival. Aldrick, the dashing "king of the Hill," becomes a glorious, dancing dragon; his lovely Sylvia, a princess; Fisheye, rebel idealist, a fierce steel band contestant; and Philo, Calypso songwriter, a star. Then a business sponsors Fisheye's band, Philo gets a hit song, and Sylvia leaves the Hill with a prosperous older man. For Aldrick, it will take one more masquerade--this time, involving guns and hostages--before the illusion of power becomes reality.

Making History Happen: Caribbean Poetry in America examines Lorna Goodison's Turn Thanks (1999), McCallum's The Water Between Us (1999), and Claudia Rankine's Plot (2001) and Don't Let Me Be Lonely (2004). Engaging familiar themes and issues of time, language, and identity, the readings focus on Signifying moments in the works of the poets under discussion. Reflecting on some of the ways that transnational women poets of the black diaspora are using tropes of mobility to create a renewed sense of identity and a sense of belonging to a communal network, the readings also demonstrate that the project of re-writing individual self-identity in light of one's expanding consciousness or awareness of the other is more urgent, and more demandingly realistic, in contemporary poetry written by women poets who occupy transnational spaces. In these works, re-memory becomes a process that transforms, the gathering of memory reflecting the interrelatedness of communal and individual subjective identities. Rankine's poetry collections are used to close the discourse in this book, for the call they make. An intriguing crossing of genres, their structural use of time and space reflects the stylistic inventiveness that has become a hallmark of transnational poets of the black diaspora. In its transformation of language, and of images that remain open-ended in their meanings, Don't Let Me Be Lonely fuses poetry, dialogue, and prose with images from television and other forms of communication media to create a poetic collection that is relentless in its confrontation with the way we make cultural meanings. The collection of essays in this book calls attention to an emerging poetic body of Caribbean writing in America that requires naming, for it is new.

The Caribbean produced what is arguably the most vigorous and exciting body of poetry of the twentieth century. In The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse, Stewart Brown and Mark McWatt have come together to produce the only anthology of Caribbean poetry available that represents all of the Caribbean--not only the English language writers. The book features a range of poets, from Derek Walcott and Edward Braithwaite to Jesus Cos Causse, and from Olive Senior to Una Marson. It covers less acclaimed poets of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, as well as exciting newer voices from the 80s and 90s. Poetry lovers of any description will find this a rich and satisfying book. The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse offers a new and original context in which to explore the unique poetry of the Caribbean. This rich and satisfying collection will enchant, entertain, and inform anyone with an interest in the art of poetry.

The culture shock of Sophie Coco, a 12-year-old Haitian girl from the provinces, summoned to New York by her mother whom she hardly knows and who is toiling in a nursing home to provide for the family back home.

The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literatureoffers a comprehensive, critically engaging overview of this increasingly significant body of work. The volume is divided into six sections that consider: the foremost figures of the Anglophone Caribbean literary tradition and a history of literary critical debate textual turning points, identifying key moments in both literary and critical history and bringing lesser known works into context fresh perspectives on enduring and contentious critical issues including the canon, nation, race, gender, popular culture and migration new directions for literary criticism and theory, such as eco-criticism, psychoanalysis and queer studies the material dissemination of Anglophone Caribbean literature and generic interfaces with film and visual art This volume is an essential text that brings together sixty-nine entries from scholars across three generations of Caribbean literary studies, ranging from foundational critical voices to emergent scholars in the field. The volume's reach of subject and clarity of writing provide an excellent resource and springboard to further research for those working in literature and cultural studies, postcolonial and diaspora studies as well as Caribbean studies, history and geography.

Lyrical and well-crafted, this collection of poetry presents some of Jamaican poet Shara McCallum's best work. While touching upon various topics--including migration, identity, family relationships, motherhood, mental illness, storytelling, folklore, and myth--these poems transform the most painful and sometimes mundane details of life into works of terrible and satisfying beauty. Emotionally engaging and intellectually stimulating, this compilation celebrates the poetics of both the Caribbean and of North America.

"Breath, Eyes, Memory" (1994), the novel born from Edwidge Danticat s childhood in Haiti and immigration to New York City, was one of the great literary debuts of recent times, marking the emergence of an impressive talent in addition to opening up an entire culture to a broad general readership. This gifted author went on to win the American Book Award in 1999 for her novel, "The Farming of Bones" (1998), attracting further critical acclaim. Offering an accessible guide for readers and critics alike, this book is the first publication devoted entirely to Danticat s unique and remarkable work. It is also distinctive in that it addresses all of her published writing up to "The Dew Breaker "(2004), including her writing for children, her travel writing, her short fiction, and her novels. The book contains an exclusive interview with Danticat, in which she discusses her recent memoir, "Brother, I m Dying" (2007), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. It also includes an extensive bibliography. With contributions from Danticat s fellow creative writers from both the Caribbean and the United States as well as leading scholars of Caribbean literature, this collection of essays aims to enrich readers understanding of the various geographical, literary, and cultural contexts of her work and to demonstrate how it both influences and is influenced by them. Contributors Madison Smartt Bell * Myriam J. A. Chancy * Maryse Conde * J. Michael Dash * Charles Forsdick * Mary Gallagher * Regine Michelle Jean-Charles * Carine Mardorossian * Nadeve Menard * Martin Munro * Nick Nesbitt * Mireille Rosello * Renee H. Shea * Evelyne Trouillot * Lyonel Trouillot * Kiera Vaclavik"

Contains an interview with Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat conducted on June 2003. Danticat discusses life in Haiti, her family, immigration to the United States, and her work to promote young authors. Ends with a reading in French from The dew breaker.

This comprehensive study examines the full body of works by Dominican-American author Julia Alvarez, whose literary corpus includes poetry, historical-fiction novels, essays, short stories, young adult books, and folkloric-based children's texts. This research examines the duality of present in the recurrent and intertwined topics of language, identity, and homeland. Particular attention is focused on the manner in which Alvarez stretches the linguistic boundaries of her two languages, as well as the importance this author places on education in her writing, particularly for women and the poor. 

Examines the work of prolific Dominican American writer Julia Alvarez.

In "Triangular Road," famed novelist Paule Marshall tells the story of her years as a fledgling young writer in the 1960s. A memoir of self-discovery, it also offers an affectionate tribute to the inimitable Langston Hughes, who entered Marshall s life during a crucial phase and introduced her to the world of European letters during a whirlwind tour of the continent. In the course of her journeys to Europe, Barbados, and eventually Africa, Marshall comes to comprehend the historical enormity of the African diaspora, an understanding that fortifies her sense of purpose as a writer. In this unflinchingly honest memoir, Paule Marshall offers an indelible portrait of a young black woman coming of age as a novelist in a literary world dominated by white men."

-- Brings together the best criticism on the most widely read poets, novelists, and playwrights -- Presents complex critical portraits of the most influential writers in the English-speaking world -- from the English medievalists to contemporary writers