Dreams of Archives Unfolded: Absence and Caribbean Life Writing (Critical Caribbean Studies)

The first book on pan-Caribbean life writing, Dreams of Archives Unfolded reveals the innovative formal practices used to write about historical absences within contemporary personal narratives. Although the premier genres of writing postcoloniality in the Caribbean have been understood to be fiction and poetry, established figures such as Erna Brodber, Maryse Condé, Lorna Goodison, Edwidge Danticat, Saidiya Hartmann, Ruth Behar, and Dionne Brand and emerging writers such as Yvonne Shorter Brown, and Gaiutra Bahadur use life writing to question the relationship between the past and the present. Stitt theorizes that the remarkable flowering of life writing by Caribbean women since 2000 is not an imitation of the “memoir boom” in North America and Europe; instead, it marks a different use of the genre born out of encountering gendered absences in archives and ancestral memory that cannot be filled with more research. Dreams of Archives makes a significant contribution to studies of Caribbean literature by demonstrating that women’s autobiographical narratives published in the past twenty years are feminist epistemological projects that rework Caribbean studies’ longstanding commitment to creating counter-archives.Introduction: Archival dreams and Caribbean life writing -- 'Autobiography in a graveyard' : doors of no return and revolutionary failures -- Speculative autobiography : ghosts and feminist fugitivity -- Repicturing the picturesque : genealogical desire, archives, and descendant community autobiography -- Ashes to ashes, dust to dust : Indo-Caribbean archival impossibility -- "Put my mom in there" : Memorialization as Caribbean counter-archive -- Coda: Untelling history. "The first book on pan-Caribbean life writing, Dreams of Archives Unfolded reveals the innovative formal practices used to write about historical absences within contemporary personal narratives. Although the premier genres of writing postcoloniality in the Caribbean have been understood to be fiction and poetry, established figures such as Erna Brodber, Maryse Condé, Lorna Goodison, Edwidge Danticat, Saidiya Hartmann, Ruth Behar, and Dionne Brand and emerging writers such as Yvonne Shorter Brown, and Gaiutra Bahadur use life writing to question the relationship between the past and the present. Stitt theorizes that the remarkable flowering of life writing by Caribbean women since 2000 is not an imitation of the "memoir boom" in North America and Europe; instead, it marks a different use of the genre born out of encountering gendered absences in archives and ancestral memory that cannot be filled with more research. Dreams of Archives makes a significant contribution to studies of Caribbean literature by demonstrating that women's autobiographical narratives published in the past twenty years are feminist epistemological projects that rework Caribbean studies' longstanding commitment to creating counter-archives"-- Provided by publisher The first book on pan-Caribbean life writing, Dreams ofArchives Unfolded reveals the innovative formal practices usedto write about historical absences within contemporary personalnarratives. Although the premier genres of writing postcolonialityin the Caribbean have been understood to be fiction and poetry,established figures such as Erna Brodber, Maryse Condé, LornaGoodison, Edwidge Danticat, Saidiya Hartmann, Ruth Behar, andDionne Brand and emerging writers such as Yvonne Shorter Brown, andGaiutra Bahadur use life writing to question the relationshipbetween the past and the present. Stitt theorizes that theremarkable flowering of life writing by Caribbean women since 2000is not an imitation of the "memoir boom" in North America andEurope; instead, it marks a different use of the genre born out ofencountering gendered absences in archives and ancestral memorythat cannot be filled with more research. Dreams ofArchives makes a significant contribution to studies ofCaribbean literature by demonstrating that women's autobiographicalnarratives published in the past twenty years are feministepistemological projects that rework Caribbean studies'longstanding commitment to creating counter-archives