Reviews Mullen's examination (Greenwood Press, 1998, 236p) of Afro-Cuban literature. Notes that this study is "perceptive" and "important" to the field of Afro-Hispanic literary criticism.;
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Website presents information about African culture in Cuba, including resources on music, dance, festicals, events, authors, teachers, theater, film, conferences, local news and organizations.
Interviews Afro-Costa Rican writer Quince Duncan. Discusses the lack of critics who are familiar with Black literature in Costa Rica; asks Duncan to compare North American and Latin American criticism of his work, asks Duncan about his latest projects and the direction of his work; and compares Duncan's work with that of Alejo Carpentier and Manuel Zapata Olivella. Also touches upon language usage, the theme of literature of combat, and Duncan's future plans.;
We have never been able to hold a proper debate about Black genetics because the subject was hijacked by mad White nationalists to promote their ideas of how `inferior' Black people are - `great bodies but small minds'. On the other hand, it is also used by Black nationalists to argue the case for supposed Black genetic superiority.
The news media showed pictures of the immediate family and family friends. What I found amazing is that it appears that only light-skinned Cubans are trying to escape from their homeland. I saw the Cuban basketball team in the late Olympics. I have also seen pictures of Cubans in a television special one by Harry Belafonte. What I saw were dark-skinned Cubans having the time of their lives. It made me wonder, in light of what I have been told by African people living in Florida, that the light-skinned Cubans are more racist that some southerners. What is really going on in Cuba, and what is this Elian Gonzales issue about? The more I got into thinking this way, the more questions were raised. Why are most of the people trying to escape from Cuba light-skinned? Why are the majority of the athletics in the Olympics dark-skinned? The women's basketball team and the volleyballs teams were the bomb. They were some big, pretty sisters. I also thought of the Haitians. Why are Haitians sent back to Haiti and Cubans allowed to stay in America? They are both supposedly oppressed people. The Haitians are dark and the Cubans, who are trying to escape, light. Is there something more than meets the eye?
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
268 p., In an examination of the fiction of contemporary women writers of the African Diaspora, these writers engage important texts from writers in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States, largely ignored by mainstream literary scholars. They employ fresh and poignant critical perspectives accessible to both scholars and students. Includes Carolyn Cooper's
"Sense make befoh book": Grenadian popular culture and the rhetoric of revolution in Merle Collins's Angel and the Colour of forgetting," Paula C. Barnes "Meditations on her/story: Maryse Conde's I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem and the slave narrative tradition," and Erna Brodber's "Guyana's historical sociology and the novels of Beryl Gilroy and Grace Nichols."
