The Sense of Community in French Caribbean Fiction

Celia Britton is Emeritus Professor at University College London.

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviationsIntroduction1. Restoring Lost Unity in Jacques Roumain’s Gouverneurs de la rosée2. Past, Future and the Maroon Community in Edouard Glissant’s Le Quatrième Siècle3. Living by Mistake: Individual and Community in Simone Schwarz-Bart’s Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle4. Singular Beings and Political Disorganization in Vincent Placoly’s L’Eau-de-mort guildive5. Conquering the Town: Stories and Myth in Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco6. Community, Nature and Solitude in Daniel Maximin’s L’Ile et une nuit7. On Not Belonging: Surrogate Families and Marginalized Communities in Maryse Condé’s DesiradaConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

Celia Britton's latest book is a finely-crafted piece of writing that deserves a readership far beyond the relatively narrow community of French Caribbean scholars for whom one might assume it was intended ... At a time when francophone postcolonial studies appears to be seeking a second wind, this book by Professor Britton (and indeed the Liverpool University Press collection within which it figures) would seem to be offering an exemplary pathway out of the current impasse. This is a book that demonstrates how a serious engagement with theory from another discipline can enrich and re-vitalize the field of postcolonial literary study.French Studies 64 (1)