Hena Maes-Jelinek, The Labyrinth of Universality: Wilson Harris’s Visionary Art of Fiction

Wilson Harris is one of the “founding fathers” of Caribbean literature, a novelist generally revered by other West Indian writers and yet one which readers sometimes hesitate to explore because of his alleged obscurity. In his novels, Harris experiments with the limits of language as a means of expressing “reality.” Preoccupied by the extreme polarisation of the Guyanese society in which he grew up, with the aftermath of slavery, exploitation, and the virtual eclipse of the Amerindian heritag..

The Use of Myths in Derek Walcott’s Collected Poems 1948-1984

In his Collected Poems, Derek Walcott resorts to mythological episodes from the Iliad and the Odyssey as well as from the Bible and lesser known Amerindian sources. Refusing to choose between what is often considered as conflicting origins, he seeks to initiate a dialogue between these various cultural references. In the more recent volumes of the collection, the poet increasingly hesitates between the use of metaphor and of the epic and the ideal plainness of an honest craftsman

"Striding both worlds" : l'interculturel dans l'oeuvre littéraire de Witi Ihimaera

Les années soixante-dix marquent une période charnière dans l histoire politique et culturelle lorsque les Maoris manifestent contre l'inégalité avec les Pakehas majoritaires qui détiennent le pouvoir. C est dans ce milieu qu apparaît la première collection de nouvelles du romancier maori, Witi Ihimaera. Dès leur publication, c'est ce qui distingue les œuvres d Ihimaera de la tradition littéraire qui est mis en avant. Les critiques soulignent l'interprétation proprement maorie de l'histoire nationale, qui, d'après eux, révèle une pensée singulière et originale. Cette culture de la différence continue dans les analyses de l écriture maorie des années 2000. Par exemple, dans un recueil récent de nouvelles, The Best New Zealand Fiction Two (2005), les contributions des écrivains maoris sont décrites comme Maori voices that speak with intensity from their point of belonging . La thèse que nous développons va à l'encontre de cette optique pour mettre en évidence les points de partage dans l œuvre d Ihimaera entre la littérature anglophone et la littérature postcoloniale contemporaine. Au lieu de focaliser sur les différences entre l imaginaire maori et pakeha (appelé aussi européen et Western), la recherche des similitudes permet de révéler des aspects de son travail jusqu ici ignorés, tels que ses livrets d opéra, ou mal compris, comme ses œuvres de science fiction. Au lieu de se concentrer sur le monde maori et ses textes, ce que fait la grande majorité des analyses de la littérature maorie, une étude d interculturalité est une méthode comparative, qui situe la culture, l histoire et la littérature maories dans un contexte international et historique. Nous évaluons les œuvres d Ihimaera ainsi que leur réception en Nouvelle-Zélande à travers des discussions qui, dans des pays différents et à des périodes différentes, ont joué un rôle clé dans la formation de ce que Pascale Casanova appelle le monde littéraire . Ainsi, chacun des cinq chapitres de ce travail traite d'un thème quasi universel, à savoir le nationalisme, le débat sur le rôle de la littérature, les questions esthétiques, le rôle de l auteur et du lecteur, la spécificité ou l internationalité des romans, et l impact de la mondialisation sur les cultures et les littératures minoritaires. Dans sa diversité de genres, de sujets, de visions du monde, l'œuvre d'Ihimaera montre les limitations du point de vue théorique et critique postcolonial. Certes, elle a révolutionné la littérature anglophone avec son soutien aux écrivains des cultures minoritaires, et a élargi le champ d'interprétation du roman. Cependant, nos analyses démontrent qu'elle ne prend pas en compte les aspects interculturels de la fiction en tant que genre international, ni de la multiplicité des identités culturelles maories exprimées dans la littérature. Une ouverture critique aux théories littéraires autres que le postcolonialisme pour l'interprétation de l'œuvre d'Ihimaera met en lumière une complexité à la fois artistique et culturelle jusqu'alors ignorée. Orientée à la fois vers le passé et l'avenir, l'œuvre d'Ihimaera incite à comprendre l'identité maorie comme hétérogène. À travers les exemples de l'interculturel dans son travail, Ihimaera met en avant la vigueur de la culture maorie et de la littérature dans le monde contemporain.This thesis engages with aspects of Witi Ihimaera s oeuvre that demonstrate influences from cultures other than Maori. These may be overt in the fiction, such as plot settings in Venice, Vietnam and Canada, or implicit in his writing mode and style, influenced by English romanticism, Pakeha cultural nationalism, Katherine Mansfield s modernist epiphanies, and Italian verismo opera. In revealing Ihimaera s indebtedness to cultural and aesthetic influences commonly seen as irrelevant to contemporary Maori literature, this thesis reveals a depth and richness in Ihimaera s imaginary that is frequently overlooked and undervalued in New Zealand literary interpretation.Illuminating cross-cultural influence in Ihimaera s works calls into question the applicability of biculturalism as a comprehensive manner of accounting for both Maori cultural ambitions of self-determination and the Maori relationship with Pakeha on the national level. Far from an us-versus-them dialectic based on a separatist notion of two individually self-sufficient and complete cultures, Ihimaera s fiction shows Maori culture to have been shaped by a long history of interaction and influence with the colonial British and the Pakeha. This is manifest in the way that the Maori sovereignty and renaissance movements, which gathered force in the 1970s, have been inspired by European concepts of modernity, the structures of nation building and, more recently, by Western globalization described in the theories of transculturation and diaspora. Similarly, in New Zealand literature, Maori writing is commonly considered a parallel genre which describes a distinctive Maori worldview and literary style. Contrary to the familiar interpretation of Ihimaera s fiction from this standpoint, this thesis argues that an emphasis on difference tends to lose sight of fiction s capacity to bring into play issues of differentiation, originality and hybridity through its very form and function. In effect, Maori negotiation of its sovereign space in its literature takes place in its forms rather than in its storyline, for example in multiple linguistic significations, in the text s unstable relationship with reality, and the way that imagery escapes concrete, definitive explanation. In this optic, this thesis analyses little-discussed aspects of Ihimaera s fiction, including his love of opera, the extravagance of his baroque lyricism, his exploration of the science-fiction genre, and his increasing interest in taking Maori into the international arena.While reading against the grain of current New Zealand literary practice, this thesis does not intend to contest such reading. Rather, it endeavours to present an additional, complementary analytical framework, based on a conviction that contemporary Maori-Pakeha cultural and literary negotiation and contestation is far from unique, but a local manifestation of other international and historical efforts for recognition and respect.DIJON-BU Droit Lettres (212312101) / SudocSudocFranceF

La dualité dans les deux trilogies de Nuruddin Farah

DIJON-BU Droit Lettres (212312101) / SudocTOURS-BU Lettres (372612102) / SudocSudocFranceF

Derek Walcott

Commonwealth Essays and Studies 28.2 (“Derek Walcott”) is an exceptional issue devoted to the poetic works of Derek Walcott, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature. The volume includes an original address by Walcott, as well as a discussion between Walcott and fellow Caribbean writer E.A. Markham. The essays are a selection of papers from the international conference at the Sorbonne Nouvelle on 17-18 March 2006 in which Walcott participated. Many of the contributors are specialists in the field of Caribbean literature and acknowledged Walcott specialists, and they discuss issues such as intertextuality, polyphony, performance, writing and reading practices, poetry, language, and society, as well as questions of reception in an age of an increasingly transnational readership

Open-topic issue

Commonwealth Essays and Studies 30.2 is an eclectic open-topic issue that covers a variety of genres and a vast range of postcolonial writers (Soyinka and Achebe, but also Lahiri and Mukherjee) emerging from multiple cultural and geographical areas, from Ireland (Friel) to New Zealand (Ihimaera), both diasporic and rooted, and thus engaging in dialogic relations with amorphous readerships