Voicing Memory

History and Subjectivity in French Caribbean Literature
Arguing that the aesthetic practices of 20th-century French Caribbean writers reconstruct an historical awareness once lost amid colonial exploitation, Nesbitt shows how these writers use the critical force of the aesthetic imagination to transform the parameters of the Antillean experience.
In Voicing Memory Nick Nesbilt argues that the aesthetic practices of twentieth-century French Caribbean writers reconstruct a historical awareness that had been lost amid the repressive violence of slavery, the plantation system, and colonial exploitation. Drawing on the work of Aime Cesaire, Edouard Glissant, Daniel Maximin, Maryse Conde, and Edwidge Danticat, he shows how these writers use the critical force of the aesthetic imagination to transform the parameters of Antillean experience. The author takes the aesthetic practices of the black Atlantic - Antillean poetry, literature, and theater, but also Haitian vodou and visual arts, American jazz, and West African musical traditions - to constitute the models informing this Caribbean vernacular historiography. At the same time, Nesbitt shows how concepts from Cesaire's ""negritude"" to Glissant's ""relation"" critically rework European theoretical influences to construct a black Atlantic historical self-consciousness. In so doing, Nesbitt points beyond the regionalism of Antillean exoticism to describe French Caribbean literature as a decisive intervention in the construction of a global modernity.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.