Empty treasure chests dumped from departed ships is a quotation taken from David Dabydeen’s poem The Old Map in which the hope of a new world is green but green symbolizes also the gangrene of the sailors. Such rather unsavory paradoxes can be found in the works of contemporary (post)postcolonial writers, who engage in a dialogue with literary history while actively re-shaping contemporary culture. Far from seeking easy reconciliations, the contemporary (post)postcolonial writers rewrite the colonial experiences in relation to art and literary works. The theme of this volume are the works by and about David Dabydeen, a Guianese British writer, poet and literary scholar, whose efforts have always been directed toward re-creating the lives forever lost; those of nameless slaves and coolies of the West Indies. His inspiration, in turn were, among others, the paintings of William Hogarth and Joseph Mallord William Turner. Accordingly, the papers collected in this book address the question of (post)colonialism in a contemporary (post)postcolonial reality.
