A Generation’s Questioning: Notions of Diaspora in the Caribbean

October 18, 2023
4:45 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) Public Issues Forum.
In 1979, the Caribbean island of Grenada became the first and so far only nation in the history of the English-speaking world to declare itself revolutionary, oust its elected government, and adopt socialist approaches. Visits from Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire, African-American activist Angela Davis, Kenyan novelist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and support from the then Cuban government, signalled that this was not just a "small island" affair but a major international one, reverberating throughout Latin America and the African Diaspora.
On the 40th anniversary of the revolution's 1983 collapse and the US invasion that swiftly followed, the distinguished Grenadian novelist Merle Collins reflects on how the revolution encouraged participants like herself to think in global terms and how it influenced her own life and writing. The talk comes as she publishes her latest novel, Ocean Stirrings, about Louise Langdon, the Grenadian activist who was also the mother of Malcolm X.
Merle Collins is Professor Emerita, University of Maryland, where she taught for several years in the Department of English and the Comparative Literature Program. During the period of the Grenada Revolution, she served as a coordinator for research on Latin America and the Caribbean for the Government of Grenada. She left Grenada in 1983. The author of three novels, a collection of short stories and three collections of poetry, she also served as Director of University of Maryland's Latin American Studies Center (now Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center).
A Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) Public Issues Forum funded by the US Department of Education's Title VI UISFL grant, co-sponsored by English Literatures Department, Society for the Humanities, and the American Studies Program.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Latin American and Caribbean Studies