Postcolonial Archipelagos

Kristian Van Haesendonck

Postcolonial Archipelagos

Essays on Hispanic Caribbean and Lusophone African Fiction

Trans-Atlántico

Vol. 16

The publication of this book was supported by a grant from the Belgian Science Policy Office.

The book was subject to a double blind refereeing process.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photocopy, microfilm or any other means, without prior written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

© P.I.E. Peter Lang s.a.

Éditions scientifiques internationales

Brussels, 2018

1 avenue Maurice, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium

www.peterlang.com; brussels@peterlang.com

ISSN 2033-6861

ISBN 978-2-8076-0398-1

ePDF 978-2-8076-0399-8

ePUB 978-2-8076-0400-1

MOBI 978-2-8076-0401-8

DOI 10.3726/b11460

D/2018/5678/09

CIP available at the Library of Congress and the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Haesendonck, Kristian van, 1974- editor. Title: Postcolonial Archipelagos : essays on Hispanic Caribbean and Lusophone African fiction / [edited by] Kristian Van Haesendonck. Description: Bruxelles ; New York : Peter Lang, 2017. | Series: Trans-Atlantico-Trans-Atlantique ; Vol. 16 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017023923| ISBN 9782807603981 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9782807603998 (ebook) | ISBN 9782807604001 (epub) | ISBN 9782807604018 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Caribbean fiction (Spanish)--History and criticism. | African fiction (Portuguese)--History and criticism. | Postcolonialism in literature. Classification: LCC PQ7361 .P67 2017 | DDC 863.009/9729--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023923

Bibliographic information published by die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at ‹ http://dnb.d-nb.de ›.

About the Author

Kristian Van Haesendonck is a research fellow and member of the Postcolonial Literatures Research Group at the University of Antwerp. His interests lie in Ibero-American and Caribbean literatures and cultures, as well as in writing from Lusophone Africa. He has taught in the United States (Princeton, Villanova), Belgium (Universiteit Antwerpen, Universiteit Gent), the Netherlands (Universiteit Leiden) and Portugal (University of Lisbon). He is the author of ¿Encanto o espanto? Identidad y nación en la novela puertorriqueña actual (Iberoamericana), Going Caribbean! New Perspectives on Caribbean Literature and Art (Humus), and Caribbeing: Comparing Caribbean Literatures and Cultures (Rodopi).

About the book

Writers from different postcolonial regions are usually classified according to their different nationalities or linguistic areas, and have rarely been brought together in one volume. Moving in a new direction, Postcolonial Archipelagos crosses not only geographical but also linguistic boundaries, by focusing on two contexts which seemingly have little or nothing in common with one another: the Hispanic Caribbean, and Lusophone Africa. Kristian Van Haesendonck thus opens new ground, in two ways: first, by making connections between contemporary Caribbean and African writers, moving beyond the topos of slavery and negritude in order to analyse the (im)possibility of conviviality in postcolonial cultures; and secondly, by exploring new ways of approaching these literatures as postcolonial archipelagic configurations with historical links to their respective metropoles, yet also as elements of what Glissant and Hannerz have respectively called “Tout-Monde” and a “world in creolization”. Although the focus is on writers from Lusophone Africa (Mia Couto, José Luis Mendonça and Guilherme Mendes da Silva) and the Hispanic Caribbean (Junot Díaz, Eduardo Lalo, Marta Aponte, James Stevens-Arce and Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá), connections are made with and within the broader global context of intensified globalization.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to Flávia, Mircea, and my parents for their unconditional support during the process of writing this book, as well as to Kathleen Gyssels for hosting this project at the Postcolonial Literatures Research Group at the University of Antwerp.←7 | 8→ ←8 | 9→

Abbreviations1

←9 | 10→ ←10 | 11→

1 The abbreviations are used only for titles that are frequently quoted.

Contents

Introduction

chapter 1. The Archipelagic: A Brief Assembly Manual

chapter 2. Madness as Conviviality? José Luis Mendonça’s O Reino das Casuarinas

chapter 3. Autofiction as a Postcolonial Strategy: Guilherme Mendes da Silva’s De humeuren van meneer Utac and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

chapter 4. Beyond Animality: Mia Couto’s Transmutations

chapter 5. Caribbean Cultural Discourse and Fiction in an era of Globalization

5.1 Postmodern teratologies

5.2 (Re-)animating the Caribbean

chapter 6. The Heart of Lightness

6.1 ¿Dónde? Locating the Caribbean subject in the Postmodern Non-place

6.2 The Empire writes back … and goes global

6.3 Decolonizing the nation: the Orwellian cityscape in James Stevens-Arce’s Soulsaver

chapter 7. Travelling concepts I: From the Caribbean to Europe

7.1 Composite cultures

7.2 Towards a theory of literary creolization

7.3 Literary pidginization←11 | 12→

chapter 8. Travelling concepts II: The Archipelago as a Spatial Concept for Literary Studies

chapter 9. Narrating Postcolonial Lives

Conclusion: Global Entanglements

Bibliography

Index of Names←12 | 13→

Introduction

We are all Caribbeans now in our urban archipelagos.

(James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture)