Play It Back a Next Way: Teaching Brodber Teaching Us

This essay focuses on the densely interdisciplinary nature of Erna Brodber's textual knowledge production, its visionary quality, and the complex narrative strategies of her fictions that bear comparison with those of Wilson Harris. Mapping the scaffolding of Brodber's formal aesthetic, and her ethical and ideological frameworks, assists in navigating the rich terrain of her work. The generic fusions that comprise Brodber's writing style demand a negotiation between philosophy and discourses of therapy and healing that her fiction must serve. Attending to these fusions one can make out patterns in her fictions that reiterate/rehearse specific central concerns.

This article offers ways of engaging with the initially challenging writing because of her conviction that Brodber has so much to teach us. Discussing some of these challenges, it draws on Brodber's fiction and nonfiction, both of which insist readers learn to read in a new way. The reward is attainment of a transformative vision that shares Harris's commitment to revising, recreating, and redefining history.