Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Rodriques, Janelle, 1987- author.

Title Narratives of Obeah in West Indian literature : moving through the margins / Janelle Rodriques
Published Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019
©2019

Copies

Description 1 online resource (240 pages)
Contents Introduction. Obeah as cultural signifier. "Too much row an contention is in this yard": contemplating cacophony in Minty Alley and Black Fauns -- "Part of the narrative of modern art yet not central enough to be considered constitutive": "Primitive modern" in Banana Bottom and Wide Sargasso Sea -- "It is the reader who constructs a story": Obeah and cultural identity in the mid-century West Indian short story -- Obeahmen as heroes, in "a zone of direct contact with developing reality". -- "The peace of those she must touch and who must touch her": Obeah as healing in Erna Brodber's Myal -- Conclusion. Hearing Obeah
Summary "This book explores representations of Obeah, a name used in the English/Creole-speaking Caribbean to describe various African-inspired, syncretic Caribbean religious practices, across a range of prose fictions published in the twentieth century. In the Caribbean and its diasporas, Obeah often manifests in the casting of spells and/or administering of baths and potions, and sometimes spirit possession, for the purposes of protection, revenge, health and wellbeing, and remains illegal in most Caribbean territories. Narratives of Obeah in West Indian Literature analyses texts that employ Obeah as a symbol of resistance to colonial ideology and marker of the black 'folk' aesthetics that are now constitutive of West Indian literary and cultural production. They foreground Obeah as a social and cultural logic both integral to and troublesome within the creation of such a thing as 'West Indian' literature and culture. The book explores the presentation of Obeah as an "unruly" narrative subject, allowing for subversion and resistance, as well as its significance in Afro-'folk' aesthetics which are now constitutive of West Indian literary and cultural production. Narratives of Obeah in West Indian Literature will be of interest to scholars and students of Caribbean Literature, Diaspora Studies, and African and Caribbean religious studies, as well as more widely to scholars of the Black Atlantic"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on July 25, 2019)
Subject West Indian fiction (English) -- History and criticism
Obeah (Cult) in literature.
Secret societies in literature.
Religion and literature -- West Indies -- History -- 20th century
Literature and society -- West Indies -- History -- 20th century
LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- Caribbean & Latin American.
RELIGION -- General.
Obeah (Cult) in literature
Caribbean fiction (English)
Literature and society
Obeah (Cult)
Religion and literature
Secret societies in literature
West Indian fiction (English)
West Indies
Genre/Form Electronic books
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2019980017
ISBN 9780429505027
0429505027
9780429998652
0429998651
9780429998669
042999866X
9780429998645
0429998643