In this essay collection, Albert James Arnold reads French Caribbean literature in its historical context, focusing on the competing claims of ethnic groups from the time of slavery to the recent past. The plural society model predominates, with a particular interest in gender difference and societal issues.

'A true Caribbeanist, James Arnold has long been a vital critical presence. These essays bear testimony to a remarkable career and to the hallmarks of Arnold's scholarship: its extraordinary erudition; and the subtle but determined anticolonialism that motivates the work, even as it questions the broader thrusts of Postcolonial Theory.' Professor Martin Munro, Eminent Scholar and Winthrop-King Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Florida State University 'Reading the French Caribbean is a thoroughgoing analysis of the history of French Caribbean literature, containing lucid, well-researched analyses of key works. The book summarises the findings of Arnold's long and successful career examining the history and culture of the French Caribbean, including extensive scholarship on the wide-ranging works of Aimé Césaire. The book provides an excellent resource for students who want to discover this long and rich culture.' Professor Jane Hiddleston, Professor of Literatures in French, University of Oxford In this essay collection, Albert James Arnold reads French Caribbean literature in its historical context, focusing on the competing claims of ethnic groups from the time of slavery to the recent past. The plural society model predominates, with a particular interest in gender difference and societal issues. Terms such as 'negritude', 'créolite' and the 'neocolonial' are explored and challenged, while the influence of such theorists as Edouard Glissant and Frantz Fanon are shown to continue to reverberate into the present. This collection offers insightful readings of the literature of the French Caribbean to a new generation of scholars.

Autorentext

Albert James Arnold taught French and Comparative Literature at the University of Virginia. Research grants and university invitations took him to Paris, Leiden, Potsdam, Brisbane and Cambridge. His books on Aimé Césaire (1981, 2020) are authoritative, as are his editions of Césaire's works in French (2014) and English (2017). He has published extensively on identitarian discourse in the French Caribbean.

Inhalt

Table of Contents

CHARLES FORSDICK
Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Francophonie and Its Discontents

PART I
Surveying the Field

Chapter 1
The Lie of the Land

Chapter 2
Dynamics of a Conflicted National Identity

PART II
Reading Identitarian Discourse

Chapter 3
The Folktale as Marker of Caribbean Identity

Chapter 4
Folklore, Exoticism and the Colonial Novel

Chapter 5
How Mulatto Novelists Became 'Black'

Chapter 6
A Béké Seeks to Reoccupy the Centre

Chapter 7
Créolité: The Margin Writes Back Against the Centre

PART III
Creoleness vs Creolisation

Chapter 8
Martinique - From Glissant's Poétique de la relation to Traité du Tout-Monde

Chapter 9
Guadeloupe - Creolisation au féminin

PART IV
Reading Aimé Césaire in the Twenty-First Century

Chapter 10
The Vicissitudes of 'Negritude'

Chapter 11
Césaire, Ideology and Identity

Conclusions

Bibliography

Index