Afro-descendant literature and cultural identity in the Antilles

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the process of construction of the Antillean cultural identity, presenting literature as a fundamental element in this process. This analysis begins by considering the historical and economic formation of the Antilles and then its literary movements such as Negritude, which contributed significantly to the identity construction of the Antillean Afro-descendants. Through the Literary Negritude Movement, the Antillean Afro-descendant writer seeks to “rescue” the origins of being black in order to deconstruct the negative and derogatory image that was created from the white man’s view and, therefore, to show the Afro-descendant culture and its value from another perspective. We will study the example of the Afro-descendant writer Maryse Condé, one of the greatest representatives of the Antillean literature. To support this paper, we shall turn to Stuart Hall (2003), Butel (2007), Maximin (1996), Glissant (2005), among others.