Synopsis
This is the first book to be written on Indo-Caribbean literature. It is a thorough, highly-researched, pioneering study of the significance of Indo-Caribbean writing for Caribbean writing as a whole. Indo-Caribbean studies is a rapidly expanding area within the field of Caribbean studies. This title will be of interest not only to those concerned with literature but also to those concerned with more general historical and cultural approaches. Jeremy Poynting is widely acknowledged as an expert in this field. The Ph D thesis on which this much-updated book is based has been consistently on loan since its completion. The Second Shipwreck has a four part structure. Part one deals with the historical and cultural re/sources of Indo-Caribbean writing. Part two focuses on the literary responses to separation from India, looking at images of limbo both as placelessness and liminal possibility (from shipwreck to odyssey), and argues that it is possible to identify survivals and transformations of a Hindu world-view. Part Three looks at literary explorations of the increasing diversity within the Indo-Caribbean communities, using images of place as stages in an historical journey, which now includes the settlement of diasporic communities in North America and Britain. It also examines issues of gender, and particularly the emergence of Indo-Caribbean women's writing. The final part deals with how imaginative writing has portrayed the problematic relationships between Indians and their African-Caribbean neighbours.
