Caribbean literature
[8] Magazines such as Kyk-Over-Al in Guyana, Bim in Barbados, and Focus in Jamaica, which published work by writers from across the region, also encouraged links and helped build an audience.
Other notable names in (anglophone) Caribbean literature have included Una Marson, Earl Lovelace, Austin Clarke, Claude McKay, Louise Bennett, Orlando Patterson, Andrew Salkey, Edward Kamau Brathwaite (who was born in Barbados and has lived in Ghana and Jamaica), Linton Kwesi Johnson, Velma Pollard and Michelle Cliff, to name only a few.
In more recent times, a number of literary voices have emerged from the Caribbean as well as the Caribbean diaspora, including Kittitian Caryl Phillips (who has lived in the UK since one month of age); Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian immigrant to the United States; Anthony Kellman from Barbados, who divides his time between Barbados and the United States; Andrea Levy of the United Kingdom; Jamaicans Alecia McKenzie, who has lived in Belgium, Singapore and France, and Colin Channer and Marlon James, the author of the 2015 Man Booker Prize-winning novel A Brief History of Seven Killings (as well as John Crow's Devil, The Book of Night Women, the unpublished screenplay "Dead Men", and the short story "Under Cover of Darkness"), Antiguan Marie-Elena John, and Lasana M. Sekou from Saint Martin.
[12][13] Caribbean classic novels such as Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) have inspired films, stories, and poems by other artists who seek to decolonize the relationship of people and landscapes.
[15] Another contemporary classic about migrant cultures is Ramabai Espinet’s novel The Swinging Bridge (2003), which explores trauma of displacement, Indian indentureship, and the phenomena of invisibility relating to women.
Derek Walcott describes the complications of colonialism using local fruit metaphors, such as star apples, in his poetry to connote the complexity of acidity and the sweetness.
Among the most prominent Caribbean poets whose works are widely studied (and translated into other languages) are: Derek Walcott (who won the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature), Kamau Brathwaite, Edouard Glissant, Giannina Braschi, Lorna Goodinson, Aimé Fernand Césaire, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Kwame Dawes, and Claudia Rankine.
Common themes include: exile and return to the motherland; the relationship of language to nation; colonialism and postcolonialism; self-determination and liberty; racial identity.
There is great abundance of talent, styles, and subjects covered by Caribbean women writers spanning the genres of poetry, theater, short stories, essays, and novels.
Major novelists include Maryse Conde (Guadeloupe), Merle Hodge (Trinidad), Paule Marshall (Barbadian-American), Cynthia McLeod (Suriname), Elizabeth Nunez (Trinidad-American ), Tiphanie Yanique (Virgin Islands), Rosario Ferre, (Puerto Rico), and Michelle Cliff (Jamaica).
Dating to the 16th century, Juan de Castellanos's Elegy to the Illustrious Gentlemen of the Indies (1589) is an epic in verse that traces Columbus's arrival to the conquest of Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Margarita.
[29] Giannina Braschi's Empire of Dreams (1988) is a postmodern epic composed of six books of poetry that blend elements of eclogues, epigrams, lyrics, prose poem, diary, jingles, Puerto Rican folklore, and political manifesto.
[31] Braschi's later epic, written in English, is United States of Banana (2011), a geopolitical tragic-comedy about the fall of the American empire, the liberation of Puerto Rico, and the realignment of powers among Caribbean nations.
[32] Mixing elements of poetry, lyric essay, Caribbean songs, and socratic dialogues, this epic tackles the subjects of global debt, financial terrorism, and decolonization.
[33] Trinidadian playwright and novelist Earl Lovelace's work has been described as performative epics that mix the rhythms of steelband and calypso with complex narratives about black power and the political, spiritual, and psychic struggles for decolonization.
