SOURCE: Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. “The African Presence in Caribbean Literature.”¹ In Africa in Latin America: Essays on History, Culture, and Socialization, edited by Manuel Moreno Fraginals, translated by Leonor Blum, pp. 103-44. New York: Holems & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1984.

In the following essay, Brathwaite examines African influences on Caribbean folk traditions, stressing that although highly focused on religion, African cultural practices and norms not only survived periods of slavery and colonization, but that they continue to influence Caribbean folk culture in form, literature, and rhetoric.

in december to about april every year, a drought visits the islands. the green canefields take on the golden deciduous crispness of scorched parchment. the blue sky burns muted. the dry air rivets the star nights with metallic cold. it is our tropical winter. this dryness, unexplained, is put down to ‘lack of rain.’

but living in st lucia at this time, i watched...