George Lamming and the BBC’s “Caribbean Voices”: Discussions on the Autonomy of the West Indian Literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15648/cl.25.2017.8Keywords:
Caribbean literature, “Windrush” generation, Caribbean intellectuals, postcolonialism, “Caribbean Voices”Abstract
This paper addresses the controversy held by George Lamming, Derek Walcott, Edward Brathwaite and V.S. Naipaul about the possibility of an authentic west indian literature, highlighting the role of the radio program “Caribbean Voices” in the diffusion of this debate. This text contributes to the field of Caribbean literary studies because it approaches the way in which mid-century west indian intellectuals gave form to novels and poetics that, by questioning the colonial racial and cultural imaginaries, gave impulse to a project of aesthetic autonomy which dialogued, at the same time, with other forms of critical thinking that appeared in the region. This reflection is based on the textual analysis of the authors’ essays and works of fiction, seeking to identify, in the light of the postcolonial theory, the ideological features that legitimize or question the symbolic hierarchies manifested in the works. The analysis of the works shows a more autonomous way of interrogating, questioning and describing the historical dynamics of alienation and dispossession that are inserted in their discursive frameworks. The latter is significant, as it marks both the aesthetic maturation of the Caribbean literature in English and its authors, and its entry into the international literary field.
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