Locating the Destitute

Space and Identity in Caribbean Fiction

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Central & South American
Cover of the book Locating the Destitute by Stanka Radović, University of Virginia Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Stanka Radović ISBN: 9780813936307
Publisher: University of Virginia Press Publication: July 29, 2014
Imprint: University of Virginia Press Language: English
Author: Stanka Radović
ISBN: 9780813936307
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Publication: July 29, 2014
Imprint: University of Virginia Press
Language: English

While postcolonial discourse in the Caribbean has drawn attention to colonialism’s impact on space and spatial hierarchy, Stanka Radović asks both how ordinary people as "users" of space have been excluded from active and autonomous participation in shaping their daily spatial reality and how they challenge this exclusion. In a comparative interdisciplinary reading of anglophone and francophone Caribbean literature and contemporary spatial theory, she focuses on the house as a literary figure and the ways that fiction and acts of storytelling resist the oppressive hierarchies of colonial and neocolonial domination. The author engages with the theories of Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, and contemporary critical geographers, in addition to selected fiction by V. S. Naipaul, Patrick Chamoiseau, Beryl Gilroy, and Rafaël Confiant, to examine the novelists’ construction of narrative "houses" to reclaim not only actual or imaginary places but also the very conditions of self-representation.

Radović ultimately argues for the power of literary imagination to contest the limitations of geopolitical boundaries by emphasizing space and place as fundamental to our understanding of social and political identity. The physical places described in these texts crystallize the protagonists’ ambiguous and complex relationship to the New World. Space is, then, as the author shows, both a political fact and a powerful metaphor whose imaginary potential continually challenges its material limitations.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

While postcolonial discourse in the Caribbean has drawn attention to colonialism’s impact on space and spatial hierarchy, Stanka Radović asks both how ordinary people as "users" of space have been excluded from active and autonomous participation in shaping their daily spatial reality and how they challenge this exclusion. In a comparative interdisciplinary reading of anglophone and francophone Caribbean literature and contemporary spatial theory, she focuses on the house as a literary figure and the ways that fiction and acts of storytelling resist the oppressive hierarchies of colonial and neocolonial domination. The author engages with the theories of Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, and contemporary critical geographers, in addition to selected fiction by V. S. Naipaul, Patrick Chamoiseau, Beryl Gilroy, and Rafaël Confiant, to examine the novelists’ construction of narrative "houses" to reclaim not only actual or imaginary places but also the very conditions of self-representation.

Radović ultimately argues for the power of literary imagination to contest the limitations of geopolitical boundaries by emphasizing space and place as fundamental to our understanding of social and political identity. The physical places described in these texts crystallize the protagonists’ ambiguous and complex relationship to the New World. Space is, then, as the author shows, both a political fact and a powerful metaphor whose imaginary potential continually challenges its material limitations.

More books from University of Virginia Press

Cover of the book Performance and Personhood in Caribbean Literature by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book The War Bells Have Rung by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book Era of Experimentation by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book Staging Creolization by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book A New Continent of Liberty by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book A Little Child Shall Lead Them by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book Civil War Talks by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book Citizens of Convenience by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book The Executioner's Journal by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book The Punitive Turn by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book Rethinking Sincerity and Authenticity by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book "In the Hands of a Good Providence" by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book Partners or Rivals? by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book Sites of Southern Memory by Stanka Radović
Cover of the book A Saga of the New South by Stanka Radović
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy