African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
762 p., A biography of the novelist Jean Rhys, author of Quartet and Wide Sargasso Sea, who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. Jean Rhys's childhood, her momentous first love affair, her three marriages, the disasters which befell her husbands, her drinking and its consequences: all are shown with unsparing clarity.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
253 p, This text sets out to recapture the Creole speech of early Jamaican society by analyzing rare 18th-century documents in their socio-historical contexts.
227 p., Considers the often-silenced, tangible traces that the Haitian Revolution and radical anti-slavery have left in the greater Caribbean as they emerge in contemporary cultural productions. The author looks at national trends in the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Jamaica in order to formulate an understanding of the uses of gendered images of slavery and blackness in modern nation-building campaigns. Critically assesses what is left out of these narratives and how these gaps serve specific purposes. Argues for the centrality of the Caribbean in any true understanding of the history of modernity and the contemporary nation-state by investigating the after-shocks of the Haitian Revolution and of radical anti-slavery.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
199 p, "At the center of Jamaican-born Michelle, Cliff's novels is the exploration of the interplay between memory and history. Noraida Agosto examines Cliff's representation of memory as the part of history that has been suppressed because of its revolutionary potential. Memories of slave rebellions, for instance, were erased through omission from official historical accounts to discourage resistance among slaves. Cliff's novels are an attempt to recover these erased memories, which could generate resistance to modern oppressions. This recovery of devalued memories also entails a validation of non-elite beliefs, languages, and art forms in order to debunk dominant practices." (Book jacket);
