West Indian Literature

Caribbean literature witnessed a gradual resurgence as efforts were made by Caribbean authors to engage in contentious dialogues with the colonisers and to shape Caribbean literary aesthetics to include ideas other than those from the Victorian British. Sustained literary achievement resulted in a climax with the award of two Nobel Prizes in literature for those who hailed from this difficult to define region. The Caribbean is a complex mixture of many races, cultures, religions and traditions. This has made it difficult to fully understand the Caribbean identity, especially when European thought had been so dominant in this region. This essay presents an examination of the debates about the Caribbean identity that are apparent in Caribbean literature and the evolution of Caribbean literary aesthetics by examining selected works of Derek Walcott and Wilson Harris.