Caribbean-Scottish Relations. Colonial & Contemporary Inscriptions in History, Language & Literature

This book focuses on the historical, cultural and literary representations of various aspects of this complicated interconnection: Anim-Addo’s on family history, Covi’s on identities in African-Caribbean literature, Pollard’s on Jamaican history and language, and Sassi’s on Scottish literature. They discuss pivotal figures such as Mary Seacole, Charles and Hugh Mulzac, and texts by Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Robertson, and anonymous Author of Marly, and by Una Marson, Claude McKay, Olive Senior, Jamaica Kincaid, and Nourbese Philip among others; they give voice to Juliana Mulzac through (auto)biography and to numerous people through interviews and acts of re-memorying. This book inaugurates the project to remap history by accounting for the often paradoxical complexity of relations determined by imperial power; not only does it consider that which separates Scotland from the Caribbean, that which sets ‘Blackness’ apart from ‘Scottishness’, but it also accepts an investigation of that which brings these two geopolitical areas and ethnic groups together. The inquiry results in a multi-vocal discourse that deconstructs national narratives, unveils colonial inscriptions, and releases the creolised images and words that demand full citizenship in the representation of the Circum-Atlantic.