Claire Westall – författare

Prison Writing and the Literary World tackles international prison writingand writing about imprisonment in relation to questions of literary representationand formal aesthetics, the “value” or “values” of literature,textual censorship and circulation, institutional networks and literary-criticalmethodologies. It offers scholarly essays exploring prison writingin relation to wartime internment, political imprisonment, resistance andindependence creation, regimes of terror, and personal narratives of developmentand awakening that grapple with race, class and gender. Cuttingacross geospatial divides while drawing on nation- and region-specific expertise,it asks readers to connect the questions, examples and challengesarising from prison writing and writing about imprisonment within theUK and the USA, but also across continental Europe, Stalinist Russia, theAmericas, Africa and the Middle East. It also includes critical reflectionpieces from authors, editors, educators and theatre practitioners with experienceof the fraught, testing and potentially inspiring links between prisonand the literary world.

Prison Writing and the Literary World tackles international prison writingand writing about imprisonment in relation to questions of literary representationand formal aesthetics, the “value” or “values” of literature,textual censorship and circulation, institutional networks and literary-criticalmethodologies. It offers scholarly essays exploring prison writingin relation to wartime internment, political imprisonment, resistance andindependence creation, regimes of terror, and personal narratives of developmentand awakening that grapple with race, class and gender. Cuttingacross geospatial divides while drawing on nation- and region-specific expertise,it asks readers to connect the questions, examples and challengesarising from prison writing and writing about imprisonment within theUK and the USA, but also across continental Europe, Stalinist Russia, theAmericas, Africa and the Middle East. It also includes critical reflectionpieces from authors, editors, educators and theatre practitioners with experienceof the fraught, testing and potentially inspiring links between prisonand the literary world.

The Routledge Companion to World‑Literature and the Environment takes a broad, global overview of the history, present and potential futures of environmental and literary studies, demonstrating that world‑literature is itself a world‑ecological force.Over 36 chapters, the collection moves from early modern imperial activity through to the contemporary climate emergency. This book is organised into seven thematic sections: Commodity Frontiers and Extraction; Fossil Fuel Energetics; Food and Land; Oceans, Fresh Water and Hydropolitics; Disease, Toxicity and Social Reproduction; Emergencies, Wars and Disasters; and Apocalypse and Insurgency. With coverage stretching across Europe, the Americas, Australasia, the Indian subcontinent and East Asia, the Companion takes a multilingual approach, appearing in English yet also tackling texts originally written in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish, as well as texts containing translated elements of Indigenous languages. Chapters examine multiple genres, modes and media, including novels, short stories, poetry, drama, graphic narratives, nonfiction prose and oral literature. Weaving together eco‑materialist approaches to the aesthetic registration of humanity‑in‑nature, the environmental history of capitalism and world‑literary methods of comparativism, this Companion acts as a large‑scale guide for new readers and researchers interested in postcolonial studies, global or world‑literature, ecocriticism and the environmental humanities. At the same time, it provides an interventionist account of innovative methodological priorities and areas of topical focus for advanced scholars.

It examines works by canonical authors – Brathwaite, Lamming, Lovelace, Naipaul, Phillips and Selvon – and by understudied writers – including Agard, Fergus, John, Keens-Douglas, Khan and Markham. Literary depictions of iconic West Indies players – including Constantine, Headley, Worrell, Walcott, Sobers, Richards, and Lara – feature throughout.