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Palgrave Macmillan

The Rites of Cricket and Caribbean Literature

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. Claire Westall

    1. Department of English and Related Literature, University of York, York, UK

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  • Offers new and cricketing-specific modes of reading canonical authors Brathwaite, Naipaul, Lovelace, and Selvon
  • Tackles short stories, novels, poetry, plays and cinematic works; and issues of migration, race, religion and belonging
  • Makes an essential new contribution to the field of Marxism in relation to Caribbean cricketing literature

Part of the book series: New Caribbean Studies (NCARS)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: “Cricket Is We!”

    • Claire Westall
    Pages 1-32

  3. Growing and Belonging

    • Claire Westall
    Pages 33-70

  4. Style as Substance

    • Claire Westall
    Pages 71-106

  5. Rites and Heroics

    • Claire Westall
    Pages 107-153

  6. Metaphors and Manoeuvres

    • Claire Westall
    Pages 155-191

  7. Motherly Figures and Undomesticated Daughters

    • Claire Westall
    Pages 193-228

  8. Migrant Movements and Cricketing Stereotypes

    • Claire Westall
    Pages 229-263

  9. Coda: “Strike After Strike”

    • Claire Westall
    Pages 265-274

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 275-282
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Keywords

About this book

This book analyses cricket’s place in Anglophone Caribbean literature. It examines works by canonical authors – Brathwaite, Lamming, Lovelace, Naipaul, Phillips and Selvon – and by understudied writers – including Agard, Fergus, John, Keens-Douglas, Khan and Markham. It tackles short stories, novels, poetry, drama and film from the Caribbean and its diaspora. Its literary readings are couched in the history of Caribbean cricket and studies by Hilary Beckles and Gordon Rohlehr. C.L.R James’ foundational Beyond a Boundary provides its theoretical grounding. Literary depictions of iconic West Indies players – including Constantine, Headley, Worrell, Walcott, Sobers, Richards, and Lara – feature throughout. The discussion focuses on masculinity, heroism, father-son dynamics, physical performativity and aesthetic style. Attention is also paid to mother-daughter relations and female engagement with cricket, with examples from Anim-Addo, Breeze, Wynter and others. Cricket holds a prominent place in the history, culture, politics and popular imaginary of the Caribbean. This book demonstrates that it also holds a significant and complicated place in Anglophone Caribbean literature.


Reviews

'This is a wonderful idea for a book, and Claire Westall executes the project with skill. It is extraordinarily comprehensive, demonstrating the huge collective labour which has been poured into cricket in the Caribbean, working as a means to bring the Caribbean itself into the imagination. Using literature as her lens is inspired. It will act as a resource for the future a long while yet. Westall brings Caribbean cricket alive.'

- Bill Schwarz, Professor of English, Queen Mary University of London, UK


Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of English and Related Literature, University of York, York, UK

    Claire Westall

About the author

Claire Westall is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, UK. She publishes regularly on cricket and literature. She is also co-author of The Public on the Public (2015) and co-editor of Cross-Gendered Literary Voices (2012), Literature of an Independent England (2013), and Prison Writing and the Literary World (2020).


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