The Caribbean

Introduction

Unfortunately, we must begin on a sad note as the Caribbean lost one of its most influential figures in 2020. Barbadian poet, academic and cultural activist Kamau Brathwaite died at the age of 89. Although he spent the majority of his life in Barbados, he also resided in the UK for several years, where he completed his education, and in Ghana where he worked as an education officer for the Gold Coast’s Ministry of Education.

Despite the global Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 was a remarkably successful year for Caribbean literature. First and foremost, Jamaican dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize for his commitment to political expression in his work as well as his flourishing international reputation. Trinidad-born British author Monique Roffey won the Costa Book Award for her novel The Mermaid of Black Conch. Inspired by Taino folklore, the book is set on the Caribbean island of St Constance and follows the story of a mermaid who falls for a local fisherman when he rescues her from an untimely fate after being captured by tourists. The story echoes Caribbean cultural legacies and provides thought-provoking warnings on gender and ecological issues.

Two female Caribbean authors also unveiled their debut publications to great success in the year under review. Maisy Card’s These Ghosts Are Family won the OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction as well as being a PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel finalist. These Ghosts Are Family takes the reader on a journey through the history of Jamaica, from colonial times to present day, untangling the roots of the Paisley family’s generational tree to reveal a tale of slavery, migration, lies and infidelity. Former Commonwealth Short Story Prize nominee and Small Axe winner, Caroline Mackenzie’s debut novel, One Year of Ugly, delves into the dangerous world of Venezuelan-Trinidadian migration. The Palacios family arrive illegally in Trinidad, looking for a fresh start and the story depicts their continued descent into debt-driven turmoil. Mackenzie offers a uniquely witty take on Caribbean migration, confronting important issues such as cross-cultural experiences, assimilation and human trafficking that are relieved by humour and romance.

Two modern Caribbean classics were reprinted in 2020, John Hearne’s Stranger at the Gate and Mary Seacole’s The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands. Originally published in 1956, the former novel is set on a Caribbean island and traces stories of struggle against oppression and harassment as well as of the ongoing fight for freedom. Inspired by the black working-class movements, this book offers a rare glimpse into the world of the Caribbean upper mclasses and the associated political issues of the time. The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands is, as the title would suggest, the autobiographical story of the mixed-race Mary Seacole, an iconic female figure in Jamaican history. It follows the life of this intrepid woman who provided aid and shelter for the British troops in the Crimean War before, eventually, moving to the United Kingdom, where she became a nurse and an entrepreneur. The text highlights the highs and lows of a woman who overcame many prejudices.

In poetry, Canisia Lubrin’s The Dyzgraphxst stood out as one of the highlights of 2020. This polyvocal collection delivers thoughtful meditations on selfhood and the historical legacy of the Caribbean, including cautionary tales about capitalism, toxic nationalism and climate disaster. Inspired by Taino mythology, Guabancex by Celia Sorhaindo is another celebrated collection of verse. Here her poetry speaks directly from the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island of Dominica, and includes contemplations on ecology, climate change and the fragility of life. Fred D’Aguiar, the Guyanese-British poet, novelist and playwright, published the award-winning Letters to America which presents an amalgam of styles and influences straddling the personal and the political and provides a historical look at the Middle Passage, itself the inspiration for his classic novel, Feeding the Ghosts. Letters to America is similarly influenced by the author’s life experiences as both a second-generation UK immigrant and a first-generation United States immigrant. The Sea Needs No Ornament is an award-winning poetry anthology by leading female contemporary Caribbean poets in both the English and Spanish languages. This bilingual (English and Spanish) anthology showcases some a versatile range of poets who write from their individual perspectives about gender, motherhood, race, religion, sexuality, among others.

2020 was also a fruitful year for critical studies. Taking Flight: Caribbean Women Writing from Abroad studies fiction from contemporary Caribbean immigrant female authors, such as Tiphanie Yanique and Nicole Dennis-Benn, and discusses their thoughts on gender, race and sexuality. These works are defined by their capacity to openly criticise the oppressive systems that both the authors and their protagonists operate in, where the poetics of the female body and transterritorialisation work as impetus for empowerment. Another title, Memory, Migration and (De)Colonisation in the Caribbean and Beyond, also accentuates the importance of Caribbean migration to its cultural canon. This anthology of essays recounts the events which triggered the Caribbean diaspora in the northern hemisphere and its cultural heritage. Racism, colonisation and the Black Atlantic are just some of the topics tackled in these scholarly works, with a particular emphasis on the importance of the Windrush Generation to the economic and cultural development of the present-day United Kingdom.

Other works of literary criticism focused on more specific issues, such as continental connections, of which, Obeah, Race and Racism: Caribbean Witchcraft in the English Imagination is a particularly good example. It considers the significance of the Middle Passage in the implementation of many key terms and phrases now used in postcolonial studies, such as “transculturation”. The Middle Passage was not only the cruel transatlantic trade of human beings and goods, but also a cultural and intellectual interchange which initiated the proliferation of Obeah in travellers’ stories and plantation reports. Historical distance and postcolonial theory now allow for the re-examination of these colonial texts from a fresher, more discerning perspective. For example, some of these texts denounce Obeah as a devil-worshipping religion as a means of justifying the brutal violence unleashed upon the newly colonised territories, which, in turn, emphasises how racism and prejudice moulded the Old Continent’s contempt for the New Indies.

Elsewhere, the disciplines of history, literature and politics clash in Shakespearean Adaptation, Race and Memory in the New World which examines Shakespeare’s Renaissance dramas as filtered through the eyes of postcolonial female artists, authors, playwrights and directors. This academic publication posits that the absence of black female representation in Shakespeare’s plays has motivated contemporary black female authors to re-imagine these classics in order to make them more inclusive. In a similar vein, Wide Sargasso Sea at 50 dissects its titular classic of English literature and tries to uncover the secrets of its enduring significance. It celebrates Jean Rhys’s most famous work by interviewing renowned authors such as Caryl Phillips, who himself published a novel based on Rhys’s life back in 2018, and by attempting to align the 1966 novel with present-day feminist activism such as the #MeToo movement.

Several studies on individual writers are also included in the bibliography below. The works of Caribbean authors such as Darek Walcott, Wilson Harris or Samuel Selvon are reappraised in articles that appear in critical studies on Caribbean literature. Omeros, A Brighter Sun and The Lonely Londoners, for example, discuss the works in comparative analysis with the work of other important literary names such as James Joyce, C. L. R. James, Aimé Césaire or Gloria Anzaldúa. Caribbean authors such as Caryl Phillips, Edwidge Danticat and Olive Senior are also represented in this year’s Studies on Individual Writers.

Non-fiction publications, including Tossed to the Wind: Stories of Hurricane Maria Survivors, which details the trauma experienced by those most affected by the hurricane and Gordon Rohlehr’s autobiographical Musings, Mazes, Muses, Margins: A Memoir are also entries very much worthy of attention. And, finally, the special issue section offers new perspectives on the literary and cultural happenings in black Miami and the works of Evelyn O’Callaghan. There are also two special issues devoted to Jamaica and its diaspora, one examining the current boom in Jamaican crime fiction and the other investigating the island’s intensified period of creativity during the 1950s.