Alien-Nation and Repatriation Translating Identity in Anglophone Caribbean Literature

Alien-Nation and Repatriation examines emergence and transformations in representations of national identity in Anglophone Caribbean literary traditions. Beginning with the short fiction of C. L. R. James, Alfred Mendes, and Albert Gomes, this study examines the extent to which gender, migration, and female sexuality frame the earliest representations of Caribbean identity in literature by West Indian authors. The study develops chronologically to examine the works of George Lamming, Paule Marshall, Erna Brodber, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Elizabeth Nunez. Analyzing the intimate links among gender, migration, exile, and nationalism, Alien-Nation and Repatriation emphasizes how alienation functions to marginalize women from discourses of citizenship and belonging that are integral to nationalist literature. Saunders argues that the "return" for Caribbean women writers is not focused on reclaiming the nation-state, but rather a closer examination of discourses on Caribbean identity aimed at engaging the selves that have been disciplined, through form and content, into silence in Caribbean literature. Book jacket.

Patricia Joan Saunders is assistant professor of English at the University of Miami