Barbara Lalla – författare

Caribbean Literary Discourse is a study of the multicultural, multilingual, and Creolised languages that characterise Caribbean discourse, especially as reflected in the language choices that preoccupy creative writers.Caribbean Literary Discourse opens the challenging world of language choices and literary experiments characteristic of the multicultural and multilingual Caribbean. In these societies, the language of the master— English in Jamaica and Barbados—overlies the Creole languages of the majority. As literary critics and as creative writers, Barbara Lalla, Jean D’Costa, and Velma Pollard engage historical, linguistic, and literary perspectives to investigate the literature bred by this complex history. They trace the rise of local languages and literatures within the English speaking Caribbean, especially as reflected in the language choices of creative writers.The study engages two problems: first, the historical reality that standard metropolitan English established by British colonialists dominates official economic, cultural, and political affairs in these former colonies, contesting the development of vernacular, Creole, and pidgin dialects even among the region’s indigenous population; and second, the fact that literary discourse developed under such conditions has received scant attention.Caribbean Literary Discourse explores the language choices that preoccupy creative writers in whose work vernacular discourse displays its multiplicity of origins, its elusive boundaries, and its most vexing issues. The authors address the degree to which language choice highlights political loyalties and tensions; the politics of identity, self-representation, and nationalism; the implications of code-switching—the ability to alternate deliberately between different languages, accents, or dialects—for identity in postcolonial society; the rich rhetorical and literary effects enabled by code-switching and the difficulties of acknowledging or teaching those ranges in traditional education systems; the longstanding interplay between oral and scribal culture; and the predominance of intertextuality in postcolonial and diasporic literature.

'An important addition to studies of the genesis and life of Jamaican Creole as well as other New World creoles such as Gulla. Highlighting the nature of the nonstandard varieties of British English dialects to which the African slaves were exposed, this work presents a refreshingly cogent view of Jamaican Creole features.' --SECOL Review 'The history of Jamaican Creole comes to life through this book. Scholars will analyze its texts, follow the leads it opens up, and argue about refining its interpretations for a long time to come.' --Journal of Pidgin & Creole Languages 'The authors are to be congratulated on this substantial contribution to our understanding of how Jamaican Creole developed. Its value lies not only in the linguistic insights of the authors but also in the rich trove of texts that they have made accessible.' --English World-Wide 'Provides valuable historical and demographic data and sheds light on the origins and development of Jamaican Creole. Lalla and D'Costa offer interesting insights into Creole genesis, not only through their careful mapping of the migrations from Europe and Africa, which constructed the Jamaican society but also through extensive documentation of early texts. . . . Highly valuable to linguists, historians, anthropologists, psychologists, and anyone interested in the Caribbean or in the history of mankind.' --New West Indian Guide

The songs, sermons and other materials collected in this anthology thoroughly characterize and demonstrate the distinctive language and culture that developed when African and European exiles came together on the plantations of Jamaica. Accounts of planters, slave-trading captains, and other testimonies from both the colonial and indigenous population effectively illustrate the unfolding of this unique culture.

"Beyond Borders" is a multidisciplinary collection of essays with a focus on contemporary issues in Caribbean cultural studies. Culture and cultural identification are without a doubt highly charged political Goliaths with local and global ramifications. This is one of the reasons for the virtual boom the discipline has enjoyed, and the Caribbean is no exception. As a result, there is a growing demand for information in the field for both research and teaching purposes. The essays in this collection provide such a resource. They explore cross-cultural themes and issues across a range of disciplines that include literature, language, education, history and popular culture. They will interest a broad cross-section of regional and international readers, including a wide range of scholars, professional teachers, students and members of the general public wishing to understand the complex dynamics of Caribbean culture. The issues of cultural survival and negotiation with which most of these essays deal, serve to foreground a history of domination, resistance and marvelous transformations within and beyond the borders of this archipelago.It is no longer possible to pass culture off as simply a matter of commonalities, interests and values, as if politics and power were innocent of influencing what gets defined and consumed as culture. "Beyond Borders: Cross-culturalism and the Caribbean Canon" offers a forum for contemporary debates on Caribbean culture in its ongoing process of evolution.

Barbara Lalla’s beautifully written novel explores a universal question: when, where and how does one grow old with dignity. The intricate story unfolds in Jamaica and Trinidad and tells a moving and suspenseful tale of families dealing with ageing in a shifting culture, where British-colonial influences clash with modern Jamaican politics, and lawlessness is on the increase.

In the introduction to Methods in Caribbean Research, the editors ask, “What sets the Caribbean apart and justifies an application of scholarly method to its own needs? What defines the world of Caribbean letters? Why not merely apply established approaches to scholarship that work satisfactorily in Western metropoles?” The chapters in this collection address these pressing questions and make a unique contribution to the available guides for Caribbean scholars and students of Caribbean studies both inside and outside the region. The authors consider the distinctive needs of research in Caribbean literature, language and culture and focus on honing research methods relevant to Caribbean material and with the insights of the Caribbean experience. The essays in the first part, Research Methodology, examine conceptual frames, data collection, and application and analysis of research. The second part details the research process, from proposal to proofreading. Throughout, the authors emphasise a Caribbean approach that is engaged with and aware of a range of existing theories but does not uncritically adopt external frameworks that are inadequate for a rounded Caribbean critical practice. Contributors: Jean Antoine-Dunne, Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick, Merle Hodge, Barbara Lalla, Paula Morgan, Jennifer Rahim, Nicole Roberts, Louis Regis, Jairo Sánchez-Galvis, Geraldine Skeete, Glenroy Taitt, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, Valerie Youssef.

Uncle Brother unfolds a tale of unflinching devotion against a tapestry of neglect and exploitation.Under the curious eyes of a succession of children glimmer fragments of stories that interlock to produce the saga of Nathan Deoraj – brother, uncle and teacher. The young boy on an early twentieth century cocoa estate in Trinidad begins his own story, and soon the opportunity for education and Nathan’s own passion for books opens the way to a brilliant future. Then a crippling loss reshapes his path.But the very limitations that close on him provoke him to unleash his mind into the awakening consciousnesses around him. Others who have taken up the tale reveal how Nathan’s subsequent choices lead to a recharting of countless lives, and to the forging of connections that cross Caribbean social divides. Yet, running alongside Nathan’s devotion to family and community are stories of those children who had no Nathan. Resentments arise and smolder, shocking injustice leads to tragedy, and, in old age, Nathan must tap yet deeper reserves of strength and endurance.Uncle Brother speaks to audiences of all ages in and beyond the Caribbean by exploring bonds between children and older family members, and, uniquely, between a girl growing to awareness in the light and shade of a powerful male relative. Then, threading the tale of the living legend are cries for help from a child who enters the story late in Nathan’s life, when nothing more should have been required of him….

By adopting a Caribbean perspective through which to re-examine seventeenth- to nineteenth-century texts from the British canon, this collection of essays uncovers the ways in which the literature produced at the height of British imperialism was used to consolidate and validate the national identity of the colonizer, and to justify political and cultural domination of Other places like the Caribbean.The contributors critique a wide range of verse and prose from the works of Shakespeare, Donne, Defoe, Austen, Brontë, Froude, Kingsley, Trollope, Jenkins, Stevenson, Barrie, Carroll and Dickens, revealing a literature that was very much a product of its time, but that was also responsible for contemporary and later conceptions of the Caribbean and other outposts of empire. While the critics in this volume demonstrate how such texts constructed and perpetuated the “fact” of superior British culture and civilization, they also apply to their literary interpretation a Caribbean experience of challenges associated with nation-building and identity formation. The contributors examine English literary excursions into nationhood, self-definition, freedom and confinement, and engagements with the Other – the very issues through which the Caribbean has grown into being.In revealing the complex but familiar insecurities and challenges through which English literature evolved to canonicity, Postscripts follows Barbara Lalla’s Postcolonialisms, which offered Caribbean re-readings of English medieval verse. Like that earlier study, Postscripts addresses both scholars of English literature and literary history, and those of Caribbean and postcolonial studies, and speaks to a wide readership that spans cultures sharing a colonized or colonizing past.

A gifted young scholar clings desperately to part-time employment at a Caribbean university. Then, a post opens up on an unknown offshore campus in Portmore, Jamaica. Into this harsh yet delicate terrain ventures Candace Clarke, bent on taking root in an academic world. As her relationship with her dysfunctional father grows more fraught, she draws comfort from her longstanding friend, Randall (a medievalist and would-be novelist), and she confides in him about her troubled past and bewildering present. Around her, insecurity and absurdity prompt malice, panic and redeeming wit. Alongside the lighter moments of college life, Grounds for Tenure discloses the diverse cravings of the ultra-smart and unexpectedly foolish, as well as their self-absorption and bottomless generosity. This tale of inner and outer landscapes marks a new departure in Caribbean fiction. Humorous, critical and compassionate, Barbara Lalla turns her keen gaze to the habitats for rising intellectuals in the Caribbean world of letters.

In One Thousand Eyes, a ragged troop of abandoned children fights to survive on a devastated Caribbean island. Eleven-year-old Myche marshals them out of the small sanctuary that is no longer safe, on a treacherous journey through destroyed cities and ravaged landscapes. In mountains and grottos, and in brackish wastelands of mangrove and floating grasses, the children face danger from the harsh environment and its inhabitants, as well as from intruders who hunt them ruthlessly. But a well-ordered and comfortable landing may pose the greatest threat of all.A coming-of-age tale for readers of Caribbean fiction and world literature, speculative writing and eco-fiction, One Thousand Eyes, set amid the dark forces of a chillingly possible world, is ultimately about resilience, love, courage and the power of storytelling.

Disaster catapults three children into the care of their Caribbean grandparents, before another relative, elusive and perhaps unstable, makes a conflicting claim to guardianship. Balancing domestic calamity against her own compulsive writing, Aria faces physical and psychological threats, as a pandemic creeps up on the world and the country moves into lockdown. By Such a Parting Light offers a humorous and poignant tale of aging and of coming of age, and it takes a mischievous approach to the multiple meanings of retirement. A must for all readers of Caribbean and island literature - for readers with a taste for realism that blends seamlessly into strains of the marvelous and gothic - the novel’s themes of loss and separation, love and resilience, are universally appealing.  The book personalizes local and international violence and terror by bringing it all home to a small country in an international context of uncontained infection and catastrophic politics. Turning an astonished eye on developed nations from the frail shelter of a tiny island, the tale unveils alternative notions of civilization and enlightenment.