The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature

Abstract

F. Abiola Irele and Simon Gikandi, eds. Cambridge History of and Caribbean Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 2 volumes, xli + 906 pp. Chronology. Index. $180. I assume that Cambridge University Press had good practical reasons for putting the Caribbean together with the entire continent in these two large and expensive volumes. press puts a nice spin on this setup in their blurb on the back cover: The book provides an account of the entire body of productions that can be considered to comprise the Field of literature, defined both by imaginative expression in itself and by the black diaspora. That would work as a justification if the black diaspora were confined to the Caribbean, and if the Caribbean did not have, especially in recent years, a keen interest in its own hemisphere. In the preface, the editors, Abiola Irele and Simon Gikandi, do a far better job of explaining what could (wrongly) seem to be an arbitrary juxtapostion: have endeavored in the present work to provide an account of the entire body of productions that can be considered to comprise this broad field as defined both by imaginative expression in itself, and aspects of the continuum as represented by literature in the Caribbean and to some extent in North America. (xiv) latter is an allusion to Irele's own article on The Harlem and the Negritude Movement, which rightly shows Haiti to be the fulcrum between the former and the latter. Yet Irele's and Maureen Warner-Lewis's The Oral Tradition in the Diaspora are the only articles whose express purpose is to link the hemispheres. association of the Caribbean with needs no justification: We know where it came from. Yet in a comprehensive project such as this, one might have hoped for more attention to the question of linkages. There is one obvious term that is lacking in their conception: the Atlantic. That being said, the editors and authors of Cambridge History of and Caribbean Literature have created a near marvel out of the structure that was given to them. overall design, visible in the table of contents, shows creativity, insight, and flexibility. editors have managed to reflect the various divisions of time and space that cannot be ignored, while at the same time offering ways to think through those boundaries. Thus the traditional divisions of studies-North and sub-Saharan African; precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods; Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone zones; orality and literacy-are amply exposed and analyzed here. majority of the articles are devoted to straightforward time-and-place subjects: Arab and Berber Oral Traditions in North by Sabra Webber; Gikuyu Literature: Development from Early Christian Writings to Ngugis Later Novels by Ann Biersteker; Post-colonial Caribbean Identities by Michael Dash. Yet in their most creative gestures, the editors assigned (or perhaps their contributors volunteered) topics that cut across these boundaries and meditate on what the editors call convergences (xviii): Africa and the European Renaissance by Sylvie Kande; The Literature of Slavery and Abolition by Moira Ferguson; The Formative Journals and Institutions by Milton Krieger; and Simon Gikandi's comparative study African Literature and the Colonial Factor. …