Description
Book SynopsisThe first major study of representations of Jewishness in Caribbean literature bridges the gap between postcolonial and Jewish studies and enriches cross-cultural investigations of Caribbean creolization.
Trade ReviewA rich, consequential, powerful work that will make a difference in Jewish and postcolonial studies alike. -- Jonathan Freedman, author of Klezmer America: Jewishness, Ethnicity, Modernity An engaging and rather unusual study of diaspora Jewry in the West Indies... [that shines a] bright, exalting light... on the Caribbean and its many different peoples. -- Ian Thomson Times Literary Supplement Throughout Calypso Jews, Casteel makes a case for how hidden Sephardism has captured the imagination of culturally diverse authors post-slavery. The fullness and novelty of her research opens a fascinating dialogue on the intersections of black and Jewish relationships as revealed through Caribbean literature. -- Sharon Elswit Jewish Book Council A path-breaking study... By bringing a fresh approach to a much-neglected area of scholarship, Casteel has made a major contribution to our understanding of the Caribbean writer's commitment to bearing witness to the traumas of modernity. -- Patrick Taylor H-Caribbean Casteel's richly informative study...shows us that the peoples of the world do not merely trade and compete with, love and harm one another; they also watch each other in history, become compelled by one another's stories. ALH Online Review Series X
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part 1: 1492 1. Sephardism in Caribbean Literature: Derek Walcott's Pissarro 2. Marranism and Creolization: Myriam Chancy and Michelle Cliff 3. Port Jews in Slavery Fiction: Maryse Conde and David Dabydeen 4. Plantation Jews in Slavery Fiction: Cynthia McLeod's Jodensavanne Part 2: Holocausts 5. Calypso Jews: John Hearne and Jamaica Kincaid 6. Between Camps: M. NourbeSe Philip and Michele Maillet 7. Writing Under the Sign of Anne Frank: Michelle Cliff and Caryl Phillips Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index
