The Anti-Essentialist Poetics of Claude McKay’s Banjo

Abstract

This article analyses Claude McKay’s 1929 novel Banjo focusing on its anti-essentialist approach to black identity. Such prevalent anti-essentialism differs from the racial pride politics of the Harlem Renaissance, the literary movement with which McKay is usually associated. The rhizomatic poetics of this work will be explained through the fluid character which Glissant and other later Caribbean regionalist critics ascribe to the Caribbean text. This approach favours a hemispheric perception of the Americas which aligns with McKay’s ideas on black identity. Thus, it will be concluded that the prevalence of the American influence in Banjo despite its European setting reflects Quijano and Wallerstein’s model of Americanity for explaining the modern world order which saw its dawn in the Caribbean with the arrival of the Europeans.