Description
Book SynopsisApproaching postcolonial theory through cultural analysis, this book offers an appraisal of developments in postcolonial criticism. Readings of a range of Anglophone Caribbean migrant women's texts lead to insights into three issues that are crucial to an understanding of the field.
Trade Review"This is a welcome addition to the field of black feminist writing. Hoving's focus on African and Caribbean women writing in exile deals with some familiar authors, but her theoretical approach and treatment are original and solid, and her clear readings can serve as a model for other critics in the field." -- Kathleen Balutansky * St. Michael's College *
"Hoving offers rigorous, logical analyses of works by several major modern Caribbean authors. . . . Recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty." --
Choice"Isabel Hoving has written a thoughful, meticulously researched and enthusiastic book about Caribbean women's writing, life and theory. She loves Caribbean women's literatures—African diaspora literatures in general—and it shows."
The Women's Review of Books"Students of Caribbean women's literature or those simply interested in knowing what the literature consists of will appreciate the book. It is a praiseson in honor of Caribbean women writers: read it and the books it reads." --
The Women's Review of Books"Her book is an interesting and beneficial contribution to the field of black feminist writing." -- Carole Borne *
Clemson University *
"Hoving makes a challenging and persuasive yet accessible argument against post-colonial theory as a frame for reading black women's writing." -- Carole Borne *
Clemson University *
"By encouraging the reader to listen to twentieth-century migrant Caribbean women's poetry, prose, and (she avers) their equally telling silence, she presents a dense, intricately analytical, and sensuous study of black feminine discourse and counter-discourse in a fluid, postcolonial landscape." * Journal of Women's History *
Table of Contents1. Introduction: place, voice and silence 2. Tropes of women's exile: violent journeys and the body's geography 3. Homemaking, women-talk, time-waste: Beryl Gilroy's Frangipani House 4. Writing for listeners: Merle Colins's Angel 5. The pleasures of address: Grace Nichols's Whole of a Morning Sky 6. Jamaica Kincaid is getting angry 7. A dog with a foaming mouth: Michelle Cliff and the dangers of the interior 8. The castration of Livingstone: Marlene Nourbese Philip's successful seduction of the father of silence 9. Conclusion: on the hybridity of cross-cultural dialogue Notes Index.