Snow on the Cane Fields: Women's Writing and Creole Subjectivity

(Paperback)

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This work analyzes creole women's writing over the last century, exploring the workings and influence of cultural and linguistic colonialism. Tracing the transnational and racial meanings of creole identity, the work looks at four English-speaking writers from South Africa and the Caribbean - Olive Schreiner, Jean Rhys, Michelle Cliff and Zoe Wicomb - examining their work in the light of the discourses of their times, namely 19th-century "race science" and imperialistic rhetoric, turn-of-the-century anti-Semitic sentiment and feminist pacifism, postcolonial theory, and apartheid legislation. In their writing and in their multiple identities, these women highlight the gendered nature of race, citizenship, culture and the language of literature. The text shows how each writer expresses her particular ambivalences and divided loyalties, both enforcing and challenging the proprietary British perspective on colonial history, culture and language.

Author Bio

Judith Raiskin is Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Oregon.