Description

This book analyses French Caribbean writing from the point of view of its language and literary form - questions which until recently were somewhat neglected in postcolonial studies but are now becoming an important area of research. Britton supplements postcolonial theory with structuralism and poststructuralism to show how analysis of the textual illuminates the political and ideological positions of the writers. Topics including genre, intertextuality, narrative voice, discursive agency, orality, the ‘creolization’ of languages and the renewal of realism are discussed in relation to Glissant, Césaire, Ménil, Chamoiseau, Confiant, Depestre, Condé, Schwarz-Bart, Pineau and Maximin. Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Part I: Genre, Intertextuality, Discourse 1. How to be primitive: Tropiques, surrealism and ethnography 2. Problems of Cultural Self-Representation: René Ménil, Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant 3. Eating their words: the consumption of French Caribbean literature 4. Intertextual Connections: The Jewish Holocaust in French Caribbean Novels 5. Breaking the Rules: Irrelevance/Irreverence in Maryse Condé’s Traversée de la mangrove 6. Discursive Agency and the (De)Construction of Subjectivity in Daniel Maximin’s L’Ile et une nuit Part II: On Edouard Glissant 7. Discours and histoire, magical and political discourse in Le Quatrième Siècle 8. Collective narrative voice in Malemort, La Case du commandeur and Mahagony 9. Fictions of identity and the identities of fiction in Tout-monde 10. Mixing up Languages in the Tout-monde 11. ‘La parole du paysage’: Art and the Real in Une Nouvelle Région du monde Appendix Writing in the Present: Interview with Maryse Condé Notes Bibliography Index This book links postcolonial theory with structuralism and poststructuralism to show how analysis of the textual illuminates the political and ideological positions of French Caribbean writers. Written by one of the most important critics in Francophone Studies Provides a vital link between postcolonial theory, structuralism and poststructuralism Writers discussed include Glissant, Césaire, Ménil, Chamoiseau, Confiant, Depestre, Condé, Schwarz-Bart, Pineau and Maximin. Written by one of the most important critics in Francophone Studies. Provides a vital link between postcolonial theory, structuralism and poststructuralism. Writers discussed include Glissant, Césaire, Ménil, Chamoiseau, Confiant, Depestre, Condé, Schwarz-Bart, Pineau and Maximin Britton makes an unanswerable case for a rebalancing of textually-based and world-based reading, a rebalancing of critical attention to language and form on the one hand, representation and political positioning on the other. This publication, though consisting of previously published material, in its cumulative effect and sustained attention across the field as a whole, demonstrates the incisive originality and intelligence of this outstanding reader of French Caribbean literature.