The grass that they cut and trample and dig out and sprout roots again”: The Spiritual Baptist Church in Earl Lovelace’s The Wine of Astonishment

Earl Lovelace’s fiction can be said to, ultimately, work as a force to give validity to the Creole culture created out of the coming together of many worlds in the Caribbean. As in his novel The Dragon Can’t Dance, which celebrated those Creole art forms around Carnival, in his next novel, The Wine of Astonishment (1982), i Lovelace celebrates yet another Creole institution, the Trinidadian African-derived church of the Spiritual Baptists. In the novel the Spiritual Baptist church, made to be seen as the darkness from which natives needed to be weaned by colonial authorities, is celebrated and acknowledged as one of the basis that allowed for the creation of a new society away from the colonial narrowness. In The Wine of Astonishment, the resistance put up by Spiritual Baptist practitioners, in spite of the prohibition and violence endured, is acknowledged, celebrated and recognised as one of the milestones in Caribbean history. This article will trace, as reflected in the novel, the evolution of the Spiritual Baptist church, and will analyse its symbolical relation to another art form created in the New World: the steel pan movement. All in all, this article will examine the survival of this Trinidadian African-derived church together with the emergence of the steelpan as two of the most salient testimonies of cultural survival and creolisation of the nation

'Marlon James's 'Dangerous' A Brief History of Seven Killings'

Jamaican writer Marlon James's third novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, for which he won the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2015, is a crime novel which looks beyond the surface to explore and unearth suppressed histories. The genre itself, crime fiction, has proven to be prosperous ground to undertake such explorations. In Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction, Lee Horsley asserts that simply "the act of looking at what has been hidden is in itself fraught with meaning" (2005: 203) and he further specifies that the detective or crime story is "an ideal form of exploration of suppressed realities. The investigative structure provides a ready-made instrument for unearthing the previously invisible crimes against people" (id.). In fact, James himself has described his novel as the act of the pulling off a stitch that might "disrupt the whole fabric" (James 2015)

West Indian Writers Who Do Not “Translate As Well”: The Case of Trinidadian Writer Earl Lovelace

This article discusses some of the major factors that can potentially work as agents of censorship in the promotion of postcolonial literary texts. In the discussion, centred on West Indian writing, the writer’s location, choice of topics and languages are foregrounded as the three major factors that account for the lack of promotion of a particular variant of West Indian writing. In particular, this paper is centred on the dearth of translations of texts by Trinidadian writer Earl Lovelace. The article argues that the figure of the literary translator has the capacity to act as a catalyst for change in the collective endeavour of reversing the aforementioned imbalance in the West Indian literary field.En este artículo se abordan algunos de los factores principales que pueden, de manera potencial, actuar como agentes de censura en la promoción de textos literarios poscoloniales. En la discusión, que se centra en la escritura proveniente de las islas del Caribe, se ponen de relieve la ubicación del escritor, los temas y los idiomas como los tres factores principales para la falta de promoción de una variante particular de la escritura de las islas del Caribe. En particular, este ensayo se enfoca en el reducido número de traducciones de textos del escritor de Trinidad Earl Lovelace. El artículo plantea que el traductor literario tiene la capacidad de actuar como figura de cambio, parte de un esfuerzo colectivo para revertir la desigualdad con respecto al campo literario de las islas del Caribe.Cet article examine certains des principaux facteurs qui peuvent intervenir comme agents de censure dans la promotion de textes littéraires postcoloniaux. Dans cette analyse de textes antillais, nous dégageons trois facteurs qui expliquent la faible promotion d’une variante particulière de la littérature issue de cette région : l’emplacement de l’écrivain, le thème et la langue de l’oeuvre. Nous nous intéressons tout particulièrement à l’absence de traductions des oeuvres de l’écrivain trinidadien, Earl Lovelace. Nous affirmons que le traducteur littéraire peut intervenir dans un projet collectif visant à corriger ce déséquilibre dans le monde littéraire antillais.Este artigo discute alguns dos principais fatores que atuam como agentes potenciais de sensura na promoção de textos literários pós-coloniais.  Centrando-se na escrita antilhana, a localização do escritos, os tópicos e as línguas são tomados como os três principais fatores responsáveis pela falta de promoção de uma variante específica da escrita antilhana.  De forma específica, este trabalho focaliza a morte das traduções dos textos do escritor trinitino Earl Lovelace. Argumentamos que o tradutor literário pode agir como uma figura de mudança no empenho coletivo de se reverter o desequilíbrio descrito no campo da literatura antilhana

“Marlon James’s ‘Dangerous’ A Brief History of Seven Killings”

Book review

Feminismes i traducció (1965-1990), Pilar Godayol

Obra ressenyada: Pilar GODAYOL, Feminismes i traducció (1965-1990). Maó: Punctum, 2020

The grass that they cut and trample and dig out and sprout roots again: The Spiritual Baptist Church in Earl Lovelace's The Wine of Astonishment

Earl Lovelace's fiction can be said to, ultimately, work as a force to give validity to the Creole culture created out of the coming together of many worlds in the Caribbean. As in his novel The Dragon Can't Dance, which celebrated those Creole art forms around Carnival, in his next novel, The Wine of Astonishment (1982), i Lovelace celebrates yet another Creole institution, the Trinidadian African-derived church of the Spiritual Baptists. In the novel the Spiritual Baptist church, made to be seen as the darkness from which natives needed to be weaned by colonial authorities, is celebrated and acknowledged as one of the basis that allowed for the creation of a new society away from the colonial narrowness. In The Wine of Astonishment, the resistance put up by Spiritual Baptist practitioners, in spite of the prohibition and violence endured, is acknowledged, celebrated and recognised as one of the milestones in Caribbean history. This article will trace, as reflected in the novel, the evolution of the Spiritual Baptist church, and will analyse its symbolical relation to another art form created in the New World: the steel pan movement. All in all, this article will examine the survival of this Trinidadian African-derived church together with the emergence of the steelpan as two of the most salient testimonies of cultural survival and creolisation of the nation

On Crossing Barriers: Contemporary Caribbean Women Poets in Translation

As Luise von Flotow already emphasized more than two decades ago in her work  Translation and Gender: Translating in the ‘Era of Feminism’ (1997), often times feminist translators try to assume the responsibility of offering a critical reflection to their readers about their process, diverse methods and philosophies of translation. From our stance as feminist translators, we offer here a critical reflection on the process of collectively translating the bilingual anthology of poetry The Sea Needs No Ornament/ El mar no necesita ornamento (2020), accompanied by a sample of four poems by four of the thirty-three contemporary Caribbean women poets included. In this way, this paper contextualizes and offers a glimpse into the bilingual anthology of contemporary Caribbean women poets we have edited and translated from a feminist as well as a postcolonial perspective.

Feminismes i traducció (1965-1990), Pilar Godayol

Obra ressenyada: Pilar GODAYOL, Feminismes i traducció (1965-1990). Maó: Punctum, 2020

Looking Back: Inspiration to Move On

Editorial Introduction