Reviews
“Race, Culture, and Identity: Francophone West African and Caribbean Literature and Theory From Négritude toCréolité crosses a crucial bridge from Africa to the Caribbean. The reader travels from postcolonial Afrocentrism to a cross-cultural global perspective. Lewis was the first to illuminate the important position of Paulette Nardal, a Martinican feminist active in the Negritude movement. This dramatic discovery, which reveals black women’s full contribution to Francophone culture, exposes a new world in French literature.”
—Linda Orr, Duke University
“Not everyone who’s talking about the space of contemporary black conciousness knows how it evolved. Shireen K. Lewis does. Her analysis of how Black Francophone Caribbean intellectuals and writers made the twentieth-century transition from advocating negritude to trumpeting creolite illuminates our current debates about cultural ‘authenticity’ and multicultural hybridity.”
—George Elliott Clarke, University of Toronto
“An eloquently written and path-breaking analysis of black identities in the Francophone world with significant relevance for contemporary discussions of globalism and the Black diaspora.”
—Katya Gibel Azoulay, Grinnell College
“In Race, Culture, and Identity, Lewis offers. . .a highly readable book. . .that allows the reader to play a role in discovery of another time and place. By demystifying her theme, she presents ideas that everyone can understand about what lies behind the complex world that shapes the destinies of so many.”
—Celia Sharpe, Hispanic Outlook, Click here for entire review.