Review by Choice Review
The principal contribution of this well-written study is its strongly argued case that Jamaican literature "resists the loss of its own identity in the regional literature" through its own creole, its focus on opposition to "oppression," and its widespread use of "the maroon character" (fugitives, travelers, desperate waifs and strays, rejects, and wild men--figures so often encountered in 19th-century Australian literature in which Otherness, rejection, escape, pursuit, and resistance are a prevailing sequence). Lalla (Univ. of the West Indies) argues that the outcast persona is central to the Caribbean canon; the Jamaican has no thought of Africa as "home" or any desire to eliminate European influences; and because only a minuscule number of non-Africans live in the country, power differentials exist only between blacks and browns. The author's penetrating sociological analysis is limited to imaginative Jamaican fiction. Do the same issues arise in evaluating Jamaican children's literature, oratory, biography? Much of Defining Jamaican Fiction is devoted to close readings of the works of Jean Rhys, Erna Brodber, Anthony Winkler, Olive Senior, and John Hearne (too long undervalued even by Jamaican critics and readers), who have written about "them tough pickneys," alienated and psychotic characters, and the growing rift between radical and conservative causes. Lalla persuades the reader that "the unifying impression of the Maroon experience is one of incredible endurance." A most challenging study. Upper-division undergraduate and up. A. L. McLeod Rider University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
