Writers of the Caribbean Diaspora : Shifting Homelands, Travelling Identities

Histories are important and histories have a way of travelling. West Indies is one example of a society constructed artificially of imported populations, who have gone on to build their own power structures, political histories and national identities. The Caribbean is one such society where multi-culturalism has been put to test. This book is an attempt to understand Caribbean histories, patterns of migration and race-relations. It is a collection of essays by Caribbean writers like V.S. Naipaul, Paule Marshall, Jean Rhys, Austin Clarke, Caryl Phillips and Cyril Dabydeen. The essays in this book have taken up most of the representative authors of the Caribbean, either by addressing their work or through contributions by the writers themselves. The attempt has been to provide a chronological history of the Caribbean and to give representation to writers living now in different host cultures. Some papers are gender-oriented and locate the position of the women in the West Indies.