20th century
A01=Paul Breslin
archival research
Author_Paul Breslin
Category=DSBH
Category=DSC
Category=DSK
colonial rule
colonialism
confrontational
contested
creation
creative writer
creativity
cultural studies
culture
decolonization
drama
dream on monkey mountain
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
henri christophe
historical
interviews
literary
literature
major works
nation states
national identity
nobel prize
omeros
plays
playwright
poet
poetry
postcolonial
postcolonialism
saint lucia
sir derek alton walcott
society
west indian history
Product details
- ISBN 9780226074276
- Weight: 510g
- Dimensions: 17 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Oct 2001
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Nobody's Nation offers an illuminating look at the St. Lucian, Nobel-Prize-winning writer, Derek Walcott, and grounds his work firmly in the context of West Indian history. Paul Breslin argues that Walcott's poems and plays are bound up with an effort to re-imagine West Indian society since its emergence from colonial rule, its ill-fated attempt at political unity, and its subsequent dispersal into tiny nation-states.
According to Breslin, Walcott's work is centrally concerned with the West Indies' imputed absence from history and lack of cohesive national identity or cultural tradition. Walcott sees this lack not as impoverishment but as an open space for creation. In his poems and plays, West Indian history becomes a realm of necessity, something to be confronted, contested, and remade through literature. What is most vexed and inspired in Walcott's work can be traced to this quixotic struggle.
Linking extensive archival research and new interviews with Walcott himself to detailed critical readings of major works, Nobody's Nation will take its place as the definitive study of the poet.
According to Breslin, Walcott's work is centrally concerned with the West Indies' imputed absence from history and lack of cohesive national identity or cultural tradition. Walcott sees this lack not as impoverishment but as an open space for creation. In his poems and plays, West Indian history becomes a realm of necessity, something to be confronted, contested, and remade through literature. What is most vexed and inspired in Walcott's work can be traced to this quixotic struggle.
Linking extensive archival research and new interviews with Walcott himself to detailed critical readings of major works, Nobody's Nation will take its place as the definitive study of the poet.
