Description
Book SynopsisCompares the intellectual exile of men with the economic migration of women, linking the canonical male tradition to the writing of modern West Indian women
Trade Review"A well-researched, considered study, make all the more effective by Edmondson's ability to deliberate on the individuality of the authors whilst reflecting upon their place within the greater Caribbean literary canon."--British Bulletin of Publications on Latin America, April 2000 " ... Powerfully and persuasively argued."--Ethnic and Racial Studies, March 2000 "A well-researched, considered study, made all the more effective by Edmondson's ability to deliberate on the individuality of the authors whilst reflecting upon their place within the greater Caribbean literary canon." British Bulletin of Publications "Edmondson knows anglophone Caribbean writing inside and out. She has written an ambitious book that ... Succeeds, and often quite brilliantly so, in combining theoretical sophistication and energy with readability. Even audiences not steeped in current debates in Caribbean Studies are likely to find Making Men an accessible and enjoyable challenge." Vera M. Kutzinski, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History "Edmondson provides a well-documented, challenging look at West Indian letters... Edmondson does not pit the writings of one gender against those of the other, but she sees their work as part of an ongoing process of delineating national identity." Choice "In Making Men, Edmondson is most convincing in arguing that the early male-authored West Indian narratives fail under the discursive weight of their own nationalist narratives, which are burdened with Victorian ideologies. While these nationalist narratives remasculinized the Caribbean at the expense of women--black and white--and while they recommodified the folk even as they idealized Caribbean folk life, Edmondson argues, women's narratives created entirely new paradigms of subjectivity and nationality." Kathleen M. Balutansky, Signs "[C]onvincing ... The thesis is absolutely fascinating, and I would add definitely convincing and generally clearly illustrated... Making Men is a highly important and very timely work ... [H]er text [is] a must read for scholars of Caribbean literatures." Ifeoma C. K. Nwankwo, Callaloo "[O]riginal and interesting... [A]n important contribution to the field of Caribbean literature." Ymitri Jayasundera, South Atlantic Review "[P]owerfully and persuasively argued and include[s] detailed studies of a number of lesser known texts." Suzanne Scafe, Ethnic and Racial Studies "[R]ich account of twentieth-century Caribbean narrative in the anglophone context." Faith Smith, Research in African Literatures "Enjoyable, refreshing, and provocative... This work offers important and long overdue assessments of postcolonial theory and Caribbean Anglophone literature." Jean D'Costa, co-author of Language in Exile: Three Hundred Years of Jamaican Creole "Edmondson's fascinating thesis is developed through a series of overlapping historical, sociological, and cultural arguments." Rhonda Cobham-Sander, Amherst College
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Writing the Caribbean: Gender and Literary Authority 1
Part I. Making Men: Writing the Nation 17
1 "Race-ing" the Nation: Englishness, Blackness, and the Discourse of Victorian Manhood 19
2 Literary Men and the English Canonical Tradition 38
3 Representing the Fold: The Crisis of Literary Authenticity 58
Part II. Writing Women: Making the Nation 79
4 Theorizing Caribbean Feminist Aesthetics 81
5 The Novel of Revolution and the Unrepresentable Black Woman 105
6 Return of the Native: Immigrant Women's Writing and the Narrative of Exile 139
Notes 169
Bibliography 205
Index 221
