- Reclaiming Difference: Caribbean Women Rewrite Postcolonialism
Many studies of the Caribbean restrict themselves to one linguistic zone. By contrast, Carine M. Mardorossian's thoughtful analysis of the novels of four modern women writers considers works from the francophone, anglophone and hispanophone Caribbean: Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe), Jean Rhys (Dominica), Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic) and Edwidge Danticat (Haiti). Framing her work in a lucid and detailed introductory chapter discussing the notion of difference with regard to postcolonial theory, Mardorossian paves the way for a coherent appraisal of the resistive strategies used to reclaim difference which she identifies in her authors' works. Uniting the study is a consideration of the [End Page 409] location of space and identity: as the Introduction points out, these authors have all relocated to 'colonial or neo-colonial centers' and Mardorossian explores the implications of these transcultural experiences. Considering literary rewritings — Condé and Rhys have both rewritten canonical British texts — allows Mardorossian a portal through which to investigate their work whilst challenging received ideas of racial and cultural identities. The first (and longest) chapter examines Maryse Condé's Windward Heights (referred to in English, as are all titles throughout) and offers an excellent discussion of Condé's novel, which is comparatively little known, both relating and, when appropriate, opposing it to theories of Antillanité and Créolité. With a wink at Spivak in the section provocatively entitled 'Shutting up the Subaltern', the study engages with Rhys's rewriting of Jane Eyre, after which it returns to Condé in a chapter entitled 'Racial Vagaries in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights'. The inclusion of a section on Brontë in a collection purporting to deal with Caribbean authors initially seems an unusual choice, but this is explained as Mardorossian sets out to read the text 'through the Caribbean lens of Maryse Condé's Windward Heights', thus returning to, and to some extent reversing, the gaze of the opening chapter. The final chapter on Alvarez and Danticat focuses on creolization and the Black Atlantic, pointing to the state of perpetual cross-fertilization which characterizes the Caribbean diaspora. By treating authors from different linguistic backgrounds, Mardorossian simultaneously widens and narrows the scope of her project: whilst the principal authors are discussed in depth, other notable writers such as francophone authors Gisèle Pineau and Simone Schwarz-Bart (to name but two) are not mentioned, but this is to some extent an inevitable drawback of attempting a work which unites the Caribbean and does not detract from the literary analyses undertaken. Ultimately, Mardorossian is successful in presenting a thought-provoking account which roams across four different regions of the archipelago and makes a lively, well-written and original academic contribution to Caribbean studies and the field of comparative literature. [End Page 410]