#migrations

[antigonick]

locked cell you in me without me

—Gloria Gervitz, trans. by Mark Schafer, excerpt of Migrations [Migraciones]

[etoilesbienne]

[vox-anglosphere]

Our Ancient Tribes

Sixth-century Britain

[maryoliveoil]

Three of my favorite books of recent years — all by the same extraordinary writer. I highly recommend any and all of them.

[helenethiennot]

Sans titre - France - 2024

photographie argentique - Agfa APX 400

Hélène Thiennot

[dearlydreamingdorian]

“It isn’t fair to be the kind of creature who is able to love but unable to stay.”

- Charlotte McConaghy “Migrations”

[caribbeanart]

Themes in Caribbean Literature

Journeys, Diasporas and Migrations

Historically, travel between the islands and the mainlands has been very common in the Caribbean, from Haitians, Cubans and Jamaicans taking exile in neighboring countries, to West Indians working on the banana plantations in Central America in the early 1900s and going as far back to the Caribs and the Arawak who frequently used canoes to travel between islands and throughout the region.

In our literature, poets and writers have likened the Antilles to a lake or an estuary, a port to different parts of the world. Travels and journeys can be had physically but also mentally and spiritually to ancestral lands. A literature of traces, reconnections, translations, if traditionally literature from other cultures has been about consolidating a regional identity, Caribbean literature—and identity—in a sense has been about building bridges, rekindling connections lost and starting anew.

(See also: Intro to Caribbean Literature)

References / Learn more

"Caribbean Writers & Their Art: History, the Caribbean and the Imagination (1991)." Caribbean Writers Summer Institute. University of Miami Library.

"Caribbean Writers and Their Art: Journeys (1991)." Caribbean Writers Summer Institute. University of Miami Library.

"Caribbean Writers and Their Art: Islands & Mainland (1991)." Caribbean Writers Summer Institute. University of Miami Library.

"Introduction." The Repeating Island. Antonio Benítez Rojo. 1992.

"Memories de Maldito Amor." Maldito Amor. Rosario Ferré. 1998.

"Poética de la Relación." Édouard Glissant. Traducción en Antología del pensamiento crítico caribeño contemporáneo. 2017. (Texto original desde El discurso antillano, 1981.)