Caryl Phillips

This book examines the ways in which Phillips responds both creatively and critically to the psychological effects of cultural dispersal, racism and economic exploitation. Highlighting the continuing negotiations between Britain and its previous colonies, this study demonstrates the ways in which Phillips’ fictional and non-fictional work reformulates the traumatic crises and corresponding agents of survival, both within the past and the present. It transcends the restriction of linear time to produce an intertemporal dynamic. His work is discussed not only in terms of its critical emphasis upon past events, but also its vision of a more expansive dimension of collective experience.