Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert - Böcker

In the first quarter of the 20th century, Daniel Thaly of Dominica, then a British Caribbean colony, was one of France’s most celebrated poets. He was educated in Martinique and then at medical school in France before returning to Dominica. His illustrious reputation crumbled when radicals in the emerging anti-colonial Negritude movement criticised his work. From then on he wrote little. Here for the first time in English (and French) we can read a selection of his lyrical and passionate poems - many about Dominica - alongside an introduction that pieces together what little is known of his life.

The Spanish expression - la cultura cura (culture heals) - is an affirmation of the potential healing power of a variety of cultural practices that together constitute the ethos of a people.

This study considers writing by Caribbean women, such as the slave narrative of Mary Prince and the autobiography of Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole, and works by women whose travels to the Caribbean had enormous impacts on their own lives, such as Aphra Behn and Zora Neale Hurston.

This comprehensive, annotated bibliography of works by and about Caribbean women novelists from 1950 to the present covers novelists from all Caribbean islands and Surinam writing in English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and their dialects. Entries on some 150 individual writers are organized alphabetically and comprise a biographical sketch, data on novels with plot synopses, a listing of other known publications in all genres, as well as annotated criticism and reviews. Included are translations, interviews, recorded materials, and broadcast literature. Sources range from publications of major presses and journals in various countries and languages to dissertations and items from local newspapers and small presses. Preceding the author entries is a Bibliography of General Works covering criticism; bibliographies, both regional and for individual countries; and bio-bibliographical reference books. Alternative means of access are provided by a List of Authors by Country and indexes of novels, critics, and themes and key words. A guide to resources on literature of the Netherlands Antilles is included as an appendix.Caribbean literature--and Caribbean women writers in particular--is one of the fastest growing fields of literary study. Additionally, the Caribbean presents an ideal laboratory for other areas of intense research: comparative literatures and post-colonial studies. This bibliography serves these interests, placing special emphasis on common themes and techniques that transcend national boundaries and linguistic differences.

With the publication of her novel Annie John in 1985, Jamaica Kincaid entered the ranks of the best novelists of her generation. Her three autobiographical novels, Annie John, Lucy, and Autobiography of My Mother, and collection of short stories, At the Bottom of the River, touch on the universal theme of coming-of-age and the female adolescent's need to sever her ties to her mother. This angst is couched in the social landscape of post-colonial Antigua, a small Caribbean island whose legacy of racism affects Kincaid's protagonists. Her fiction rewrites the history of the Caribbean from a West Indies perspective and this milieu colors the experiences of her characters.Following a biographical chapter, Paravisini-Gebert traces the development of Kincaid's craft as a writer. Each of the novels and the collection of short stories is discussed in a separate chapter that includes sections on plot, character, theme, and an alternate critical approach from which to read the novel, such as feminist. A complete primary and secondary bibliography and lists of selected reviews of Kincaid's work complete the study.

The Caribbean is an exotic but not too distant land, full of rich cultural traditions. The literature of the Caribbean reflects the social, political, and cultural concerns of the region and is a valuable tool for learning about the area and its people. This book includes chapters on roughly a dozen contemporary Caribbean writers. Along with plot summaries, these sections discuss major themes and give close attention to how Caribbean culture figures in the writer's texts. To help students conduct further research, each chapter cites works for further reading.

This collection of short stories features moving tales from the rich Caribbean oral tradition, stories that question women's traditional roles, present women's perspectives on the history of Caribbean slavery and colonialism, and convey the beautiful cadences of the language of Caribbean women. It offers the general reader a broad selection of the themes, styles, and techniques characteristic of contemporary women's fiction in the Caribbean. There are twenty-seven enjoyable and vibrant tales in this anthology, some of them originally written in English, others in French, Dutch, and Spanish. There are writers from Guadeloupe, Dominica, Jamaica, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Martinique, Antigua, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Surinam. Along with stories by well-known writers such as Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid, Michelle Cliff, Maryse Conde, and Rosario Ferre, the anthology also includes first-rate stories by lesser-known but equally talented writers. The collection also contains a critical introduction, biographical notes, and a bibliography.

Lally helps to raise three white sisters in the Orchid House on the Island of Dominica and observes as each flees to the cold northern lands of England and America only to return to their magical past and the man they love.

Sacred Possessions is an unprecedented collection of thirteen comparative and interdisciplinary essays exploring the cross-cultural dynamics of African-based religious systems in the Caribbean. The contributors analyze the nature and liturgies of Vodou, Santeria, Obeah, Quimbois, and Gaga as they form one central cultural matrix in the region. They ask how these belief systems were affected by differing colonial histories and landscapes, and how they affected other cultural expressions (from the oral tradition to popular art and literature), and how they have been perceived and (mis)represented by the West.The book is a unique contribution to the study of the Caribbean as a site of multiculturalism, demonstrating the linkages between anthropology, religion, literature, and popular culture. Also included are a stunning photoessay on Cuban Santeria, a glossary of terms, and an insightful introduction by the editors.

Changes in the Landscape is a collection of timely essays that bring the methodologies and commitments of ecocriticism to bear on the study of Latin American literature and cultural production. The book’s eleven chapters, written by some of the leading voices in the field, invite readers to consider how the relationship between humans and nonhuman nature was fundamentally transformed during a period when new modes of capitalist production were emerging in the region and around the world. Jennifer L. French’s introductory essay provides a historical and theoretical framework for the collection.Ranging from the immediate aftermath of the Spanish‑American Wars of Independence (1810–1826) to the early twentieth century (1925), the volume’s essays cover a wide variety of genres and forms of cultural production, from JosÉ HernÁndez’s epic poem MartÍn Fierro to prose fiction, painting and photography, and the personal albums compiled by Spanish-American women. Individually and collectively, the essays engage with scientific writing as both a discourse of power and a source of potentially significant, even revelatory information about human and nonhuman nature. Changes in the Landscape enables readers to more fully understand the transition from colonial regimes to the ecocidal extractivism of the export boom (1870–1930) by drawing out and analyzing some of the cognitive resources and rhetorical strategies that were available to imagine, protest, or enact new norms and expectations regarding the relations between human and nonhuman life, be it the life of wildflowers, waterfalls, or Cuba’s CiÉnaga de Zapata.

Changes in the Landscape is a collection of timely essays that bring the methodologies and commitments of ecocriticism to bear on the study of Latin American literature and cultural production. The book’s eleven chapters, written by some of the leading voices in the field, invite readers to consider how the relationship between humans and nonhuman nature was fundamentally transformed during a period when new modes of capitalist production were emerging in the region and around the world. Jennifer L. French’s introductory essay provides a historical and theoretical framework for the collection.Ranging from the immediate aftermath of the Spanish‑American Wars of Independence (1810–1826) to the early twentieth century (1925), the volume’s essays cover a wide variety of genres and forms of cultural production, from JosÉ HernÁndez’s epic poem MartÍn Fierro to prose fiction, painting and photography, and the personal albums compiled by Spanish-American women. Individually and collectively, the essays engage with scientific writing as both a discourse of power and a source of potentially significant, even revelatory information about human and nonhuman nature. Changes in the Landscape enables readers to more fully understand the transition from colonial regimes to the ecocidal extractivism of the export boom (1870–1930) by drawing out and analyzing some of the cognitive resources and rhetorical strategies that were available to imagine, protest, or enact new norms and expectations regarding the relations between human and nonhuman life, be it the life of wildflowers, waterfalls, or Cuba’s CiÉnaga de Zapata.

An updated introduction to the religions developed in the Caribbean regionCreole Religions of the Caribbean offers a comprehensive introduction to the overlapping religions that have developed as a result of the creolization process. Caribbean peoples drew on the variants of Christianity brought by European colonizers, as well as on African religious and healing traditions and the remnants of Amerindian practices, to fashion new systems of belief. From Vodou, Santería, Regla de Palo, the Abakuá Secret Society, and Obeah to Quimbois and Espiritismo, the volume traces the historical–cultural origins of the major Creole religions, as well as the newer traditions such as Rastafari.This third edition updates the scholarship by featuring new critical approaches that have been brought to bear on the study of religion, such as queer studies, environmental studies, and diasporic studies. The third edition also expands the regional considerations of the diaspora to the US Latinx communities that are influenced by Creole spiritual practices, taking into account the increased significance of material culture?art, music, literature, and healing practices influenced by Creole religions.

An updated introduction to the religions developed in the Caribbean regionCreole Religions of the Caribbean offers a comprehensive introduction to the overlapping religions that have developed as a result of the creolization process. Caribbean peoples drew on the variants of Christianity brought by European colonizers, as well as on African religious and healing traditions and the remnants of Amerindian practices, to fashion new systems of belief. From Vodou, Santería, Regla de Palo, the Abakuá Secret Society, and Obeah to Quimbois and Espiritismo, the volume traces the historical–cultural origins of the major Creole religions, as well as the newer traditions such as Rastafari.This third edition updates the scholarship by featuring new critical approaches that have been brought to bear on the study of religion, such as queer studies, environmental studies, and diasporic studies. The third edition also expands the regional considerations of the diaspora to the US Latinx communities that are influenced by Creole spiritual practices, taking into account the increased significance of material culture?art, music, literature, and healing practices influenced by Creole religions.

"An important chorus of our south of the border sisters for us Latinas to hear...Here we have much knowing and glorying from Argentina to Brazil to my own Dominican Republic -- toes to waist to breasts of the hemisphere!" -- Julia Alvarez.