Alienation and Displacement in Caribbean Literary

Delray Beach Public Library is pleased to present Alienation and Displacement in Caribbean Literary and Oral Texts as part of its Stories of Exile reading groups and programs for public libraries.

This presentation will explore the literary works of NourbeSe Philip and Edwidge Danticat as well as the musical poetics of Bob Marley. The theme of exile pervades these Caribbean texts, whether literary or oral, due to the multiple displacement that Caribbean subjects, particularly those from the African diaspora, have experienced due to the disconnection from ancestral lands and language. The Trinidadian Canadian writer NourbeSe Philip, for instance, represents the physical and linguistic exile Caribbean people face when forcibly removed from their African motherland and mother tongues as result of the transatlantic slave trade. Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian American writer, conveys the exile Caribbean people experience because of American imperialism resulting in social, economic, and political destabilization, which compels the migration of refugees across the Caribbean seas. Bob Marley, in turn, addresses the impact of colonial ideologies that rupture one’s sense of self, creating an alienation from African cultural identity and a continued exile within Western structures of belief.

Stacy J. Lettman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of English, Florida Atlantic University.

Registration is required to attend. Free parking is available behind the library. Funding for this program is provided through Community Project Grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and in partnership with the Delray Beach Public Library. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.