This book reproduces the texts of four lectures, followed by discussions, and two interviews with Lise Gauvin published in
Introduction a une poetique du divers (1996); and also four further interviews from
L'Imaginaire des langues (Lise Gauvin, 2010). It covers a wide range of topics but key recurring themes are creolization, language and
langage, culture and identity, 'monolingualism', the 'Chaos-world' and the role of the writer. Migration and the various different kinds of migrants are also discussed, as is the difference between 'atavistic' and 'composite' communities, the art of translation, identity as a 'rhizome' rather than a single root, the Chaos-World and chaos theory, 'trace thought' as opposed to 'systematic thought', the relation between 'place' and the Whole-World, exoticism, utopias, a new definition of beauty as the realized quantity of differences, the status of literary genres and the possibility that literature as a whole will disappear. Four of the interviews (Chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9) relate to particular works that Glissant has published:
Tout-monde,
Le monde incree,
La Cohee du Lamentin,
Une nouvelle region du monde. Many of these themes have been explored in his previous works, but here, because in all the chapters we see Glissant interacting with the questions and views of other people, they are presented in a particularly accessible form.
About the AuthorCelia Britton is Emeritus Professor at University College London.
Reviews'Far too much of [Eduard Glissant's] writing remained untranslated. This series aims to correct this error and to provide access to some important later essays, lectures and interviews. [...] These new translations illuminate in different ways Glissant's sense of place as nonreductive, nonexclusive, but like the rhizome, endlessly connecting with others. These three volumes give vibrant voice to these "flashes of light", setting out a provocative web of ideas and arguments for a Whole-world in which diverse places, identities and cultures matter in the creation of an unforeseeable but vital future.'
Neil Campbell,
Western American LiteratureBook InformationISBN 9781789621297
Author Celia BrittonFormat Paperback
Page Count 152
Imprint Liverpool University PressPublisher Liverpool University Press