377 p., Examines the representation of history in the Caribbean novel during the era of decolonization. Exploring the period from the 1930s to the 1970s, primarily in Trinidad, Barbados and Guyana, the author argues that the predominance of historical thinking in many of the exemplary novels and works of the time was not only a response to the denial by colonialism of the history of Caribbean peoples. Such prevalence was also to be found in new class relations, which began to appear during the inaugural moment of decolonization in the 1930s when, throughout the British Caribbean, popular rebellions effectively meant the end of colonial rule.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
245 p, Contents: The politics of postcolonial nationalist literature / The nation as problem and possibility / Caribbean space: Lamming, Naipaul, and federation / The novel after the nation: Nigeria after Biafra / The persistence of the nation: literature and criticism in Canada / National culture and globalization