Alien-Nation and Repatriation Translating Identity in Anglophone Caribbean Literature

by Saunders, Patricia Joan

• ISBN13: 9780739114704
• ISBN10: 0739114700
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-12-24
• Publisher: Lexington Books

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. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Patricia Joan Saunders is assistant professor of English at the University of Miami

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Foreword	p. xiii
Introduction: Imagining the Impossible	p. 1
The Trinidad Renaissance: Building a Nation, Building a Self	p. 25
The Pleasures/Privileges of Exile: Re/covering Race and Sexuality in The Pleasures of Exile and Water with Berries	p. 57
Gender and Genre: The Logic of Language and the Logistics of Identity	p. 87
Routes and Roots: Re(in)scribing the Meaning of Home	p. 113
Boundaries, Borders, and the Unhoused: Re-Routing Black Identity in North America	p. 131
Conclusion: Mapping Meaning and Identity	p. 153
Bibliography	p. 161
Index	p. 175
About the Author	p. 181
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