Colonialism left an indelible mark on writers from the Caribbean. Many of the midcentury male writers, on the eve of independence, looked to England for their models. The current generation of authors, many of whom are women, have increasingly looked-& relocated-to the United States. Incorporating ...
Colonialism left an indelible mark on writers from the Caribbean. Many of the midcentury male writers, on the eve of independence, looked to England for their models. The current generation of authors, many of whom are women, have increasingly looked-& relocated-to the United States. Incorporating postcolonial theory, West Indian literature, feminist theory, & African American literary criticism, Making Men carves out a particular relationship between the Caribbean canon-as represented by C. L. R. James & V. S. Naipaul, among others-& contemporary Caribbean women writers such as Jean Rhys, & Jamaica Kincaid, Paule Marshall, & Michelle Cliff, who now live in the United States. Discussing the canonical Caribbean narrative as it reflects national identity under the domination of English cultural authority, Belinda Edmondson focuses particularly on the pervasive influence of Victorian sensibilities in the structuring of twentieth-century national identity. She shows that issues of race & English constructions of masculinity not only are central to West Indian identity but also connect Caribbean authorship to the English literary tradition. This perspective on the origins of West Indian literary nationalism then informs Edmondson's search for female subjectivity in current literature by West Indian women immigrants in America. Making Men compares the intellectual exile of men with the economic migration of women, linking the canonical male tradition to the writing of modern West Indian women & exploring how the latter write within & against the historical male paradigm in the continuing process of national definition. With theoretical claims that invite new discourse on English, Caribbean, & American ideas of exile, migration, race, gender identity, & literary authority, Making Men will be informative reading for those involved with postcolonial theory, African American & women's studies, & Caribbean literature.