Table Of ContentRace; C~rt~~e;
aV\d JdeV\tity
Caribbean Studies
Series Editors
Shona Jackson, Texas A&M University and Anton Allahar, University of
Western Ontario
Editorial Board
Edna Acosta-Belen, SUNY-Albany; Holger Henke, CUNY; Brian Meeks, Uni
versity of the West Indies; Velma Pollard, University of the West Indies; John
Rickford, Stanford University; Sylvia Wynter, Stanford University
Lexington Books' Caribbean Studies Series is committed to publishing scholar
ship that either rethinks or imagines anew all aspects of Caribbean history, cul
ture, politics, literature, and social organization. The Series will be interested in
publishing studies and monographs that deal either with the Caribbean as a dis
crete geographical region or that treat the Caribbean and its diaspora collec
tively. Ever since it was brought into the European orbit, the Caribbean has been
defined by overlapping cultures of difference and similarity that are always in
contest and conversation. This idea of creolization and syncretism defines the
Caribbean and its people, and cannot be ignored in any attempt to understand the
region and its diasporas. The Series' editors recognize the great insular and re
gional diversity that characterize the Caribbean and its diasporas and are most
keen to highlight the multiplicity of theoretical and intellectual approaches
needed to capture this most complex region, both historically and in contempo
rary times. To this extent they welcome manuscripts written from structuralist,
poststructuralist, modernist, postrnodernist and even micro-interactionist per
spectives. In all of this one thing must remain clear: the Caribbean cannot be
subsumed beneath the banner of anyone school or perspective. Nor can it be
studied (a) independently of each state's own cultural and political situation and
contemporary relationship to international capital, or (b) without taking into ac
count the interrelationships among other Caribbean states. In other words, the
Series seeks to promote a cross-disciplinary appreciation of the Caribbean that is
just as intellectually robust as the Caribbean itself.
Titles in the series
"Colon Man a Come ": Mythographies ofP anama Canal Migration
by Rhonda D. Frederick
Negotiating Caribbean Freedom: Peasants and the State in Development
by Michaeline A. Crichlow
Ethnicity, Class, and Nationalism: Caribbean and Extra-Caribbean Dimensions
edited by Anton L. Allahar
Race, Culture, and Identity: Francophone West African and Caribbean Litera
ture and Theory from Negritude to Creolite
by Shireen K. Lewis
Shireen K. Lewis
Race, Cultvu,Ae}
J
aV\d deV\tiiy
Francophone West African and Caribbean Literature and
Theory From Negritude to Creolite
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-1472-8 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN-IO: 0-7391-1472-7 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-1473-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-IO: 0-7391-1473-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005936249
Printed in the United States of America
8Tf1.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.
For Montina and Chrissie
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;AckJl1owledg meJl1ts
T
he research for this book was done primarily from 1993 to 1998 when I
lived in France, Senegal, and Washington, D.C, and visited Marti
nique. Florence Josse greatly facilitated my research at the Bibliotheque
Saint Genevieve in Paris and also extended her hospitality during my stay in Paris.
Lilyan Kesteloot's hospitality and interest in my work made my stay in Senegal
more enjoyable and helped me to rethink some of my ideas. Librarians at the Fon
dation Senghor in Senegal, the Bibliotheque Schoelcher in Martinique, the
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, and the Library of
Congress, were indispensable.
My work on Paulette Nardal was received with great enthusiasm and encouraged
by participants at the Congres du Conseil d'Etudes Francophones in Guadeloupe in
1997. Haitian writer, J.]. Dominque, who interviewed me about Nardal for a program
on Radio Haiti was especially encouraging. I would like to thank Roland Suvelor, a
longtime friend of the Nardal family, for his help in filling in biographical informa
tion on Paulette NardaL
This book would not have been possible without help and encouragement, at
the conception, from Elisabeth Boyi of Stanford University and Linda Orr of Duke
University. I thank them both for being fine examples of professors devoted to their
students. My ideas on Negritude's relationship with modernism were greatly influ
enced by feedback from Fredric Jameson of Duke University.
I wish to thank the following people for their wonderful support: Montina Cole,
Christiana Lewis, Riche Richardson, Kangbai Konate, Sarah Posner, Claudia
Cantarella, Diana Zentay, Geeta Paray-Clarke, George Elliott Clarke, Micaela Mis
iego, Katya Gibel Azoulay, Janet Ewald, A. Leigh DeNeef, Stephen H. Weiner, Faye
Williams, Cassandra Burton, Tim Boiler, Scott Bryson, Eileen Julien, Irlene Fran<;:ois,
Aniko Noel, Edward Hayes, Gail Messier, Kathryn Grant, M.D., Robert White, M.D.,
