Searching for Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile

by Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Book cover for Searching for Safe Spaces

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Home. Exile. Return. Words heavy with meaning and passion. For Myriam Chancy, these three themes animate the lives and writings of dispossessed Afro-Caribbean women. Understanding exile as flight from political persecution or types of oppression that single out women, Chancy concentrates on diasporic writers and filmmakers who depict the vulnerability of women to poverty and exploitation in their homelands and their search for safe refuge. These Afro-Caribbean feminists probe the complex issues of race, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class that limit women's lives. They portray the harsh conditions that all too commonly drive women into exile, depriving them of security and a sense of belonging in their adopted countries -- the United States, Canada, or England. As they rework traditional literary forms, artists such as Joan Riley, Beryl Gilroy, M. Noubese Philip, Dionne Brand, Makeda Silvera, Audre Lorde, Rosa Guy, Michelle Cliff, and Mari Chauvet give voice to Afro-Caribbean women's alienation and longing to return home.
Whether their return is realized geographically or metaphorically, the poems, fiction, and film considered in this book speak boldly of self-definition and transformation.
  • ISBN10 1566395402
  • ISBN13 9781566395403
  • Publish Date 5 September 1997 (first published 1 September 1997)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Temple University Press,U.S.
  • Format Paperback (US Trade)
  • Pages 246
  • Language English