By: Vahni Capildeo

Vahni Capildeo — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:16:00 +0000

P.S. Sorry about the typos! ‘Embeddedness’, of course. Also the need for people to find their world sufficiently reflected in the literature they can access, and the great imaginative challenges to new lit….cf. Rushdie, _Imaginary Worlds_, etc.

By: Vahni Capildeo

Vahni Capildeo — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:07:00 +0000

Hi Hannah, Great post! Good to hear you and to spend time. For me, the question of ‘national literature’ flagged up how ‘national’ needn’t refer to birth and also needn’t slide into ‘nationalism’. The Caribbean, with its University of the West Indies campuses in 3 different islands, and its long history of inter-island conversations, is naturally transnational — but also, importantly, regional. As a writer I’m very interested in embeddness, pyschogeography, change of space over time, witness, etc. and so would like to recuperate authenticity and some complex, imaginative forms of localism (while not falling for sincerity, and while always enjoying play). As a human being concerned with literature in society, I said, and felt, that the question of ‘a national literature?’ also refers to readers; to the accessibility of texts. How can a literature be (or not-be) ‘national) unless there is the infrastructure (transport links, bookshops, literacy programmes) to circulate texts…or is this implicitly a question pitched at the international market level? Thanks again for the conversation. Enjoyed EWWC and hope to connect again soon. Vahni (Capildeo).

Comments on: Why investigate the question of a national literature? Hannah Lowe blogs from EWWC Trinidad

By: Vahni Capildeo

By: Vahni Capildeo