Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial CanonA PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform (www. oapen. org). Historically and contemporarily, politically and literarily, Haiti has long been relegated to the margins of the so-called 'New World.' Marked by exceptionalism, the voices of some of its most important writers have consequently been muted by the geopolitical realities of the nation's fraught history. In Haiti Unbound, Kaiama L. Glover offers a close look at the works of three such writers: the Haitian Spiralists Frankétienne, Jean-Claude Fignolé, and René Philoctète. While Spiralism has been acknowledged by scholars and regional writer-intellectuals alike as a crucial contribution to the French-speaking Caribbean literary tradition, the Spiralist ethic-aesthetic not yet been given the sustained attention of a full-length study. Glover's book represents the first effort in any language to consider the works of the three Spiralist authors both individually and collectively, and so fills an astonishingly empty place in the assessment of postcolonial Caribbean aesthetics. Touching on the role and destiny of Haiti in the Americas, Haiti Unbound engages with long-standing issues of imperialism and resistance culture in the transatlantic world. Glover's timely project emphatically articulates Haiti's regional and global centrality, combining vital 'big picture' reflections on the field of postcolonial studies with elegant close-reading-based analyses of the philosophical perspective and creative practice of a distinctively Haitian literary phenomenon. Most importantly perhaps, the book advocates for the inclusion of three largely unrecognized voices in the disturbingly fixed roster of writer-intellectuals that have thus far interested theorists of postcolonial (Francophone) literature. Providing insightful and sophisticated blueprints for the reading and teaching of the Spiralists' prose fiction, Haiti Unbound will serve as a point of reference for the works of these authors and for the singular socio-political space out of and within which they write. |
Other editions - View all
Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon Kaiama L. Glover No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
Abricots Adèle aesthetic Affres d'un défi Agénor ahn-hahn Aimé Césaire Antillean argue Aube Tranquille Bongie border Césaire Chamoiseau characters collective colonial configuration context creative Creole créolité cultural death described discourse Dominican Dominican Republic Edouard Glissant Elías Piña Erzulie evocation evokes example exile existence fact fiction Fignolé francophone Frankétienne French Glissant global Haiti Haitian Haitian Revolution ical identity individual intellectual island landscape language literally literary literature living Mac Abre Maryse Condé massacre memory metaphor Mûr à crever narrative narrator nation Negritude novel offers oral passage past Paulin perspective Peuple des terres Philoctète Philoctète's physical pleine lune political Port-au-Prince Possédés postcolonial present prose quest Raynand reader reality reflects refusal regional Saintmilia savale schizophrenic social sœur Thérèse Sonja space space-time spatio-temporal specific spiral Spiralists story storyteller stylistic temporal tension terres mêlées theoretical three authors tion tive Trujillo's ultimately Ultravocal Vatel village violence vodou voice Wolf word writing zombie