Island Bodies - by Rosamond S King (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In Island Bodies, Rosamond King examines sexualities, violence, and repression in the Caribbean experience. She analyzes the sexual norms and expectations portrayed in Caribbean and diaspora literature, music, film, and popular culture to show how many individuals contest traditional roles by maneuvering within and/or trying to change their society's binary gender systems. She skillfully demonstrates that these transgressions better represent Caribbean culture than the "official" representations perpetuated by governmental elites and often codified into laws that reinforce patriarchal, heterosexual stereotypes.

Unique in its breadth and its multilingual and multidisciplinary approach, Island Bodies addresses homosexuality, interracial relations, transgender people, and women's sexual agency in Dutch, Francophone, Anglophone, and Hispanophone works of Caribbean literature. Additionally, King explores the paradoxical nature of sexuality across the region: discussing sexuality in public is often considered taboo, yet the tourism economy trades on portraying Caribbean residents as hypersexualized.

Ultimately King reveals that despite the varied national specificity, differing colonial legacies, and linguistic diversity across the islands, there are striking similarities in the ways Caribglobal cultures attempt to restrict sexuality and in the ways individuals explore and transgress those boundaries.

Review Quotes

"Whereas earlier works on Caribbean sexuality tend to be gender-specific, Rosamond King gives herself the space to explore a range of identities and transgressive sexualities. . . . Gives us a new and richly nuanced reading of contemporary Caribbean culture." --e-misférica


"An ambitious project. . . . One of the first books to develop a framework that does not just acknowledge but actively thinks through the diverse desires, lives, and experiences of Caribglobal communities."--H-Net


"Impressively searching and inclusive. . . . Engages with Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanic, Dutch, and diasporic 'Caribglobal' cultures in order to examine a striking range of material from the 1970s onwards, including literature, film, music and popular cultural forms such as festivals, calypso and activism. . . . Deeply inspiring and instructive."--Caribbean Quarterly


"Interrogates years of oppression and shackling decorum in Caribbean sexual space with relentless acuity."--Caribbean Beat


"Provides contemporary analysis of the history of sexualities, violence, language, and repression in the Caribbean culture."--Progressive

About the Author

Rosamond S. King is assistant professor of English at Brooklyn College and coeditor of Theorizing Homophobias in the Caribbean: Complexities of Place, Desire, and Belonging.