PATHFINDER: CARIBBEAN LITERATURE


Scope|Subject Headings|Overview Sources|Circulating Books|Specific Authors|Selected Collections|Websites

Scope: Caribbean literature emerged at the end of the 19th century as a result of changes which occurred in the geographic area of the time, as communities sought to seek independence from the often cruel and inhumane domination of Europe. Writers from this area were seeking a means of expression and political, economic, social, and ethnic issues became the subjects of their works. In short, literature mirrored the social milieu of the time. (Lindfors and Sander, Twentieth- Century Caribbean and Black African Writers.)

The purpose of this pathfinder is to serve as a guideline for student research. It is not intended as a comprehensive listing of all the materials available, but as a selective sampling of the many types of materials available on this topic in the library. Topics covered include the genres of poetry, narratives, and fiction.

Books dealing with the topic of Caribbean literature are listed in the Baddour Library’s online catalog under the following subject headings:

SUBJECT HEADINGS

Literature—Black authors—History and criticism
Caribbean fiction—Women authors—History and criticism
Caribbean literature—Encyclopedias
Caribbean literature—History and criticism
Authors, Caribbean—Biography
Caribbean Area—Literary collections

There are sources located in the Reference Section of the Baddour Library that give a general overview or summary of the topic you are researching. The following is a list of some of the resources available in the library.

OVERVIEW SOURCES

REF PN 841.I74 2004 The Cambridge history of African and Caribbean literature

REF PQ 7081.A1 E558 2004 Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean literature, 1900-2003

REF PR 9205.5.R68 1996 The Routledge reader in Caribbean literature

REF PS21.D5 v.128 Twentieth-century Caribbean and Black African Writers Second series

REF PS21.D5 v. 117 Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African writers First series

CIRCULATING BOOKS

Balutansky, Kathleen M. and Marie-Agnes Sourieau. Caribbean Creolization:
Reflections on the Cultural Dynamics of Language, Literature, and Identity.
Gainesville: University of Florida, 1998.

Burnett, Paula. The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse. New York: Penguin Books,
1986.

Dash, J. Michael. The Other America: Caribbean Literature in a New World Context.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.

Harris, Wilson. The Womb of Space: The Cross-Cultural Imagination. Westport,
Conn: Greenwood Press, 1983.

Ledent, Benedicte. Bridges Across Chasms: Towards a Transcultural Future in Caribbean Literature. Belgium: English Department, University of Liege, 2004.

Rody, Caroline. The Daughter’s Return: African-American and Caribbean Women’s
Fictions of History. New York: Oxford University press, 2001.

SPECIFIC AUTHORS

Patrick Chamoiseau

Creole folktales
Texaco

Claude McKay

Banjo: a story without a plot.
Home to Harlem
Selected poems of Claude Mckay

V.S. Naipaul

A Bend in the River
Beyond belief: Islamic Excursions among the converted peoples
The enigma of arrival: A Novel
Half a life: A Novel
A House for Mr. Biswas
India: A Million Mutinies
The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies: British, French and Dutch in the West Indies and South America
The Mimic men
A Way in the World: A Novel

Jean Rhys

Wilde Saragasso Sea

Derek Walcott

Collected poems, 1948-1984
Dream on Monkey Mountain and other plays
The Haitian Trilogy
Omeros
Tiepolo’s Hound
What the Twilight Says: Essays

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Gates, Henry Louis Jr. Pioneers of the Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives from the
Englightenment, 1772-1815. Washington, D.C: Civitas, 1998.

Glissant, Edouard. Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. Charlottesville: University
Press of Virginia, 1992.

Sandiford, Keith Albert. The Cultural Politics of Sugar: Caribbean Slavery and Narratives of Colonialism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

WEBSITES

Voice of the Shuttle (University of California, Santa Barbara)
http://vos.ucsb.edu

http://core.ecu.edu/engl/deenas/caribbean/carbwtrs.htm (East Carolina University)

http://www.postcolonialweb.org/caribbean/caribov.html (Brown University)

Updated 02/08/2007