Mothering and Matrifocality in Contemporary Caribbean Literature

This book examines representations of mothering and matrifocality in twenty-first-century Caribbean fiction. Through an analysis of several contemporary novels from Anglophone Caribbean writers, this study rejects the historic problematisation of matrifocality (mother-centeredness) as an alternative to the nuclear family structure by positioning it instead as a vital and capacious building block of Caribbean worlds. In this book, the author also explores literary portrayals of mothering (the care work carried out by mothers, othermothers, grandmothers and more) that resist stereotypical characterisation of Caribbean mother-figures. The author situates her literary analysis alongside debates from sociology, anthropology and history, taking a multidisciplinary approach to her investigation of contemporary Caribbean novels that explores an array of fictional worlds built upon a matrifocal core, and considers how these worlds resist patriarchal and Eurocentric normativity.