Échanges et appartenances dans l´essai des Caraïbes de Kamau Brathwaite, Édouard Glissant et Antonio Benítez Rojo

Abstract

In an area divided along linguistic lines and characterised by its lack of inter-regional communication, Caribbean writers, whatever their languages and homeland territories are, counter, through their writings, the balkanisation of Caribbean literature. Kamau Brathwaite, Edouard Glissant and Antonio Benítez Rojo try and bridge the gap which parts the cultural areas they belong to. Underlining the similarities their works offer, Florencia Bonfiglio reads the three writers´ works as a single essay which introduces a multilingual, diasporic, and transnational discourse on Caribbean culture. As a matter of fact, building a Caribbean discourse on Caribbean belonging was, after the hectic 1960s, on top of the agenda in the various Caribbean linguistic areas, as Wilson Harris´s History, Fable and Myth in the Caribbean and Guianas (1970), Edouard Glissant´s Caribbean Discourse (1981) and Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá´s Caribeños (2002) exemplify. Studying the works of Antonio Benítez Rojo (1931-2005), Edouard Glissant (1928-2011) and Kamau Brathwaite (1930-), Florencia Bonfiglio analyzes the strategies these authors use -among which, shared references and maritime images- to answer collective missions such as, to name but a few, decolonisation, regional integration and the building of a transatlantic identity.