Creole Renegades - by Bénédicte Boisseron (Paperback)

About the Book

This book investigates the exilic literature of Caribbean-born and Caribbean-descent writers who, from their new location in Northern America, question their cultural roots and search for a creative autonomy.

Book Synopsis

Caribbean Philosophical Association Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén
Batista Outstanding Book Award

Caribbean Studies Association Barbara T.
Christian Literary Award, Honorable Mention



In Creole Renegades,
Bénédicte Boisseron looks at exiled Caribbean authors--Edwidge Danticat, Jamaica
Kincaid, V. S. Naipaul, Maryse Condé, Dany Laferriére, and more--whose works
have been well received in their adopted North American countries but who are
often viewed by their home islands as sell-outs, opportunists, or traitors.

These
expatriate and second-generation authors refuse to be simple bearers of
Caribbean culture, often dramatically distancing themselves from the
postcolonial archipelago. Their writing is frequently infused with an enticing
sense of cultural, sexual, or racial emancipation, but their deviance is not
defiant.

Underscoring
the typically ignored contentious relationship between modern diaspora authors
and the Caribbean, Boisseron ultimately argues that displacement and creative
autonomy are often manifest in guilt and betrayal, central themes that emerge
again and again in the work of these writers.

Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining
the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities.

Review Quotes

"[An] engaging, wide-ranging
treatise on self-exiled Caribbean writers. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice

"Outstanding. ... The depth of its historical
knowledge and its sustained critique of near-sacrosanct ideas of the Caribbean
make this a timely book."--The Americas

"Boisseron's study is a
highly original, fascinating analysis of an eclectic group of intellectuals and
approaches many issues of fundamental importance for postcolonial and Caribbean
studies."--Research in African Literatures

About the Author

Bénédicte Boisseron is associate professor of Francophone and Caribbean studies at the University of Montana. She is the coeditor of Voix du monde: Nouvelles francophones.