Sounding the Break

African American and Caribbean Routes of World Literature

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Central & South American
Cover of the book Sounding the Break by Jason Frydman, University of Virginia Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jason Frydman ISBN: 9780813935744
Publisher: University of Virginia Press Publication: April 3, 2014
Imprint: University of Virginia Press Language: English
Author: Jason Frydman
ISBN: 9780813935744
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Publication: April 3, 2014
Imprint: University of Virginia Press
Language: English

The idea of "world literature" has served as a crucial though underappreciated interlocutor for African diasporic writers, informing their involvement in processes of circulation, translation, and revision that have been identified as the hallmarks of the contemporary era of world literature. Yet in spite of their participation in world systems before and after European hegemony, Africa and the African diaspora have been excluded from the networks and archives of world literature. In Sounding the Break, Jason Frydman attempts to redress this exclusion by drawing on historiography, ethnography, and archival sources to show how writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Alejo Carpentier, Derek Walcott, Maryse Condé, and Toni Morrison have complicated both Eurocentric and Afrocentric categories of literary and cultural production. Through their engagement with and revision of the European world literature discourse, he contends, these writers conjure a deep history of "literary traffic" whose expressions are always already cosmopolitan, embedded in the long histories of cultural and economic exchange between Africa, Asia, and Europe. It is precisely the New World American location of these writers, Frydman concludes, that makes possible this revisionary perspective on the idea of (Old) World literature.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The idea of "world literature" has served as a crucial though underappreciated interlocutor for African diasporic writers, informing their involvement in processes of circulation, translation, and revision that have been identified as the hallmarks of the contemporary era of world literature. Yet in spite of their participation in world systems before and after European hegemony, Africa and the African diaspora have been excluded from the networks and archives of world literature. In Sounding the Break, Jason Frydman attempts to redress this exclusion by drawing on historiography, ethnography, and archival sources to show how writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Alejo Carpentier, Derek Walcott, Maryse Condé, and Toni Morrison have complicated both Eurocentric and Afrocentric categories of literary and cultural production. Through their engagement with and revision of the European world literature discourse, he contends, these writers conjure a deep history of "literary traffic" whose expressions are always already cosmopolitan, embedded in the long histories of cultural and economic exchange between Africa, Asia, and Europe. It is precisely the New World American location of these writers, Frydman concludes, that makes possible this revisionary perspective on the idea of (Old) World literature.

More books from University of Virginia Press

Cover of the book Sucking Up by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book A Storm over This Court by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Flights of Imagination by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Broken Government by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Hidden History by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book The Specter of Races by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Detached America by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Steinbeck in Vietnam by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Dialect Diversity in America by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book The Dooleys of Richmond by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book American Abolitionism by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Elizabeth Bishop's Brazil by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Eric Williams and the Anticolonial Tradition by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book The Pragmatist Turn by Jason Frydman
Cover of the book Crucible by Jason Frydman
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy