8:248 Caribbean Literature: Writings from Exile

Mary Lou Emery

I have crossed an ocean I have lost my tongue
from the root of the old one
a new one has sprung
(Grace Nichols, I Is a Long Memoried Woman )

I have lost my place. ...The pleasure and paradox of my own exile is that I belong wherever I am. (George Lamming, The Pleasure of Exile}

...the desire (even the need) to migrate is at the heart of West Indian sensibility-whether that migration is in fact or bv metaphor.

(Kamau Brathwaite, Roots)

Grace Nichols, George Lamming, and Kamau Brathwaite are only three of the many writers from the Caribbean whose work is profoundly shaped by the experience of exile. This experience had at least one beginning when European conquest forced exile in their own lands on the indigenous people of the  region. The histories and cultures of the Caribbean were then violently rewritten through the migrations forced upon enslaved Africans and indentured laborers from India and China. The customs, languages, and cultures brought by European planters and colonials mixed with those of the laboring people to shape Caribbean identities that have subsequently been reshaped through massive emigrations in reverse--from the--Caribbean to Europe, Britain, Canada, and the U.S. These more recent movements into exile have taken place throughout the 18th and 19th , but especially the 2Oth centuries. From them have emerged some of the most exciting writers of the 2Oth (and into the 21 st) century , such as Derek Walcott, Wilson Harris, Kamau Brathwaite, and Jamaica Kincaid. They have also produced influential cultural theorists including C.L.R. James. Stuart Hall. and Paul Gilrov.

This course offers both an historical survey and a thematic study of texts and authors of the English- speaking Caribbean. Focusing on exile as theme and as a metaphor for cultural identity and literary form, we will read novels, poetry, plays, essays, and autobiographies published from the early 1900s to the present. The writers we will study have migrated from the Caribbean to live and/or work in Britain, the U.S., or Canada. Throughout the course, we will consider the following questions:

What is the significance of exile for Caribbean writers? How does it function as both historical condition and literary code? Where can we discern shifts from the sensibility of individual exile to one of displaced community?

How do experiences and representations of exile differ depending on historical context, geographical location, country of origin, class, gender, or racial identities? What is the difference between an exile, expatriate, emigrant, or emigre?

What new subjectivities emerge from the artistic and literary creativity of Caribbean exile? Through what new art forms do they find expression?

To what extent can we compare representations of exile in Caribbean literatures to tho~e in modemi!;t or in other "Dostcolonial" literatures?

Our readings will include some historical and critical texts by, for example, Edward Said, Paul Gilroy, Wilson Harris, Stuart Hall, and Michelle Cliff. We will focus mainly, however, on literature, reading various writings by Claude McKay, Jean Rhys, C.L.R. James, George Lamming, Sam Selvon, V.S. Naipaul, Wilson Harris, Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Jamaica Kincaid, Michelle Cliff, Dionne Brand. Nourbese Philip, David Dabydeen, and others.

Since this is a "readings" course, designed to allow extensive reading in the area of Caribbean literature, I will not require a major research paper. Rather, you will write brief, exploratory responses to the readings, which will open our discussions and prompt debate. Active participation in class sessions is crucial, and each student will take responsibility for opening discussion once or twice during the semester. Students will also write an 8-10 page mock conference paper and present it to the class. The course should be suited to graduate students with special interests in literatures of the Americas, the African Diaspora, and the postcolonial world, as well as of the Caribbean.