Exile and Return as Poetics of Identity in Contemporary Anglo-Caribbean Literature

Book excerpt: In contemporary Anglo-Caribbean literature, the dialectic interrelations of “exile” and “return” are essential for conveying meta-reflections on literature and language, as well as the role they play in the construction of personal and collective identities. While this volume focuses on the specificity of a cultural area whose history is marked by colonialism, diaspora, slavery and racial conflicts, it also raises epistemological questions surrounding the complexity of literature, and its function in a world which is ever more composite, hybrid and transcultural. By developing a new, systematic approach which combines post-colonial studies, theories of intertextuality and philosophy of language, it explores how contemporary literary texts reflect, elaborate and redefine the experiences of societies that are currently dealing with ever-growing global interdependencies and newly-formed cultural and semiotic context.