SOURCE: Pizarro, Ana. “Reflections on the Historiography of Caribbean Literature,” translated by J. Ann Zammit. Callaloo 11, no. 1 (winter 1988): 173-85.

In the following essay, Pizarro surveys the historical, political, and cultural background that defines Caribbean literature, noting the vast differences among the societies that comprise the Caribbean and theorizing that the literature produced by these societies serves to unite them in a way that overrides many political and cultural conflicts.

Each social formation has its corresponding social imagery: just as feudalism has an imagery, so the American slave mode of production has its own social imagery. There must have been a quite specific imagery corresponding to the production of sugar, coffee and tobacco using African slaves.¹

This observation by Depestre is the point of departure for understanding a world as complex as the one we are trying to approach today. Our concern is to understand how we can formulate...