Symbolic Cities in Caribbean Literature

Utilizing cross-cultural strands, this comparative study analyzes Caribbean literary representations of magic and invisible cities reworking the notion of the city as both instituted social space and imaginary community.

This incisive comparative study analyzes Caribbean literary representations of magic and invisible cities in new and exciting ways. In a comprehensive approach, Winks'' study ranges from literary portraits of El Dorado, to the remembered holy cities in African-based New World religions, to the secret Havanas of modern Cuban literature. Grounded in the visionary poetics of Caribbean creative writers/theorists, this book explores various cross-lingual and cross-cultural strands in the Caribbean counterpoint, with particular attention to the creative exploration and reworking of the notion of the city as both instituted social space and imaginary community. It also deals with the treatment of the utopian dimension as a space of hope against heritages of enslavement, colonial oppression, and postcolonial anomie. The study will be of interest to scholars of comparative literature, Caribbean and Latin American studies, inter-American poetics, and the African diasporas.