Culture, Nature, and the Other in Caribbean Literature

"""Well-written and well-conceived, this study provides careful, succinct, and close ecocritical readings of several Caribbean texts. A strength of the study is its embrace of the multilingualism of the Caribbean, as well as its nuanced understanding and clear communication of the cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity of the region. A further strength of this work is its engagement with a range of theoretical contributions by ecocritical scholars. This book is an accomplished and welcome contribution to ecocriticism and Caribbean studies and will interest readers in both fields."" -Professor Laura Barbas Rhoden, Wofford College ""Fully versed in contemporary decolonial, ecofeminist, environmental justice, transhumanist and ecocritical work, Mary Ann Gosser Esquil�n brilliantly illuminates Caribbean literary works that, from colonial times through today, have challenged oppressive social construction of the human, the pernicious alliance of rationalism and domination, and the wasting wrought through Western heteropatriarchy, while also affirming the agency of women and other marginalized groups as well as the more than human (including spirits), natural diversity, trans and queer eco-realities, the complexity of the monstrous, and the representation of 'nature' as more than what the master's eye can or will behold. This book is an invaluable work, necessarily enriching and deepening the field of ecocriticism and making a definitive case for the incorporation of Caribbean literature into the heart of environmental theory and ecocriticism."" -Professor Jane Caputi, Florida Atlantic University ""Through an ecocritical lens, Gosser Esquil�n offers an incisive study of colonial, romantic, and postmodern Caribbean literature. Theoretically grounded on interrelationships and interconnectedness, the book proposes a relational poetics to overcome binary perceptions of subjects, cultures, and races. The author's comparative approach as well as her penetrating analyses of well-known and lesser-known Spanish and Francophone texts from the Caribbean underscore the interconnectedness of the region. For its singularity and rigor, this book is a valuable resource for academics and specialists of Caribbean literature."" -Professor Elena Martinez, Baruch College of the City University of New York (CUNY)and CUNY, Graduate Center ""A wonderfully wide-ranging study offering a series of incisive and insightful explorations of Caribbean texts from across the archipelago. Whether rereading canonical works by the likes of Alejo Carpentier and Jacques Roumain or spotlighting little-studied novels such as those of the Indo-Guadeloupean author Jacqueline Manicom, Gosser-Esquil�n provides consistently original and thought-provoking analyses of how the relationship between human and more-than-human natures shapes cultural expression. A timely and important contribution to ecocritical studies of Caribbean literature, this book should be read by all those interested in the political ecologies of power and resistance."" -Professor Michael Niblett, University of Warwick ""Deftly organized in three main sections-Reflections, Refractions, and Decompositions-Culture, Nature, and the Other in Caribbean Literature is a tour de force of comparative Caribbean environmental and postcolonial literary studies. In exploring ecological and personal histories of trauma, Mary Ann Gosser Esquil�n incisively balances human and more-than-human complexities, interdependence, and dispossession along the junctures of race, gender, and class relations. With lyricism and verve, she leads us through the prism of colonialism, from discourses of domination, ruptures, and extinctions to invigorating readings of hybridization, coexistence, and creative survivals.""-Professor Ivette Romero, Marist College"