Narrative Strategies and the Deconstruction of Lies
2021; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 67; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00086495.2021.1926686
ISSN2470-6302
Autores Tópico(s)Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy
ResumoIN CARIBBEAN FICTION WRITTEN IN ENGLISH, CHINESE CARIBBEAN people have remained in the background even though Caribbean people of Chinese ancestry have made important contributions to present-day Caribbean society.Anne-Marie Lee-Loy expresses this by saying, "Asianness, or more specifically . . .Chineseness, remains largely relegated to the realm of silences and suppressions or gestured to as merely an element of the greater 'cut and mix' that comprises Caribbeanness." 1 Scholars like Walton Look-Lai, Trevor Millet and Andrew Wilson are among the pioneers who have examined the history of the Chinese migration to the Caribbean in works published in the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century.However, fictional writing seems to have drawn the attention of the academic and general public to the Chinese Caribbean.Interestingly, Meiling Jin's collection Song of the Boatwoman (1996) 2 does not contain many short stories that focus on the indentureship period, apart from "Victoria" that brings the reader back to the Rose Hall estate in Berbice, British Guiana, in 1909.Her underlying focus is much more present-day Guyana and the Guyanese diaspora in the United Kingdom. 3 Jin was born in British Guiana in 1956 and went to the UK with her family in 1964.She may have wanted to avoid being placed in too small a box that would be labelled "Chinese indentureship writing".Interestingly again, Patricia Powell does not have ethnic Chinese ancestry, no direct Chinese filiation.Yet, her fictional exploration of the Chinese Caribbean people in her novel The Pagoda (1998) 4 provided the necessary detour that authorised other writers to take fresh approaches.
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