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The Caribbean is a region of in-betweenness, located between North and South America and diverse in ethnic, religious and cultural terms. For some, it might conjure up images of reggae music, perfect beaches and holiday resorts, i.e. the tourist industry critiqued for its neo-colonial tendencies by Antigua-born author Jamaica Kincaid in her memoir A Small Place (1988). Since Caribbean writers and intellectuals often experience the “pleasures of exile” (George Lamming), their literature is marked by hybridity and connects the Americas with Europe in multiple ways. In this seminar we will focus on a selection of novels and short stories by contemporary Caribbean women writers, including Edwige Danticat, Jamaica Kincaid, Paule Marshall, Michelle Cliff and Joan Riley. We will analyse their representations of Caribbean women, focusing on issues such as childhood and youth, mothers and daughters, violence, poverty, food, history, migration and diaspora in a global context.
Students need to purchase (and read) the following texts:
- Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John (1985)
- Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy (1990)
- Joan Riley, A Kindness to the Children (1992)
- Edwige Danticat, Krik? Krak! (1996)
Texts that are out of print will be made available via master copy at Priebe’s from 1 March.
- A photocopied reader containing a selection of further texts, both primary and secondary, will be available from Kopiersysteme Priebe from 16 April.
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