Synopses & Reviews
First full-length study of influential novelist, poet and theorist of Caribbean and post-colonial literature.
Review
"Dash does a masterly job of discussing the important themes, images, and structures of Glissant's work as a poet, a novelist, and an essayist. As well as concise summaries of the critical reaction, Dash, who has translated two of Glissant's books, provides good translations for the numerous, useful quotations, making his book a fine introduction to a difficult but outstandimg writer." Adele King, World Literature Today
Synopsis
Edouard Glissant is an accomplished and influential novelist and poet, and has recently emerged as a major theorist in Caribbean studies and postcolonial literature. In this first full-length study of Glissant's creative and theoretical work J. Michael Dash examines his poems, novels, plays and essays in the context of modern French literary movements and the post-negritude Caribbean situation, providing both a useful introduction to, and a challenging assessment of, Glissant's work to date. Dash shows how Glissant has focused in an unprecedented way on the Caribbean in terms of the diverse and hybrid culture that has been created in the region, and how his ideas on a cross-cultural politics are the shaping force in the Francophone Caribbean Creolite movement.
Synopsis
The novelist and poet Edouard Glissant has recently also emerged as a major theorist in Caribbean studies and post-colonial literature. In this first full-length study of his work J. Michael Dash examines Glissantâs poems, novels, plays and essays in the context of the diverse nature of Caribbean cultural politics.
Table of Contents
1. Contexts; 2. The poetic intention: Un champ dâîles, La terre inquiète, Les Indes, Soleil de la conscience; 3. Novels of time and space: La lézarde, Le quatrième siècle; 4. Writing the âreal countryâ: Lâintention poétique, Malemort, Boises, Monsieur Toussaint; 5. Towards a theory of Antillanité: La case du commandeur, Le discours antillais; 6. A poetics of chaos: Pays rêvé, pays réel, Mahagony, Poétique de la relation.