Notions of Identity, Diaspora, and Gender in Caribbean Women's Writing

Abstract

Despite being a highly specialized study, Notions of Identity, Diaspora, and Gender in Caribbean Women's Writing has much to offer academics working in the fields of diaspora and gender studies. Its title is rather misleading, however; while it purports to be an examination of Caribbean women's writing, its focus is on francophone authors. Mehta explores the complexities of identity from a gendered perspective in the novels of Maryse Condé and Gisèle Pineau from Guadeloupe, Elelyne Trouillot and Edwidge Danticat from Haiti, and Laure Moutoussamy, from Martinique. Her analysis is framed by what she calls the ‘‘divergent and interconnected modalities’’ of violence, trauma, resistance, and expanded notions of identity (6). These texts provide a lens for Mehta to focus on the brutal and bloody horrors of the colonial past. She confronts the abjections of slavery in full force in her profoundly disturbing and detailed examination of the dynamics of torture, violence, and sexual abuse. The colonized body is also depicted as a source of resistance through African-rooted dancing, healing and poisoning, infanticide, seduction, and the manipulation of whites.