The Purloined Islands: Caribbean-U.S. Crosscurrents Literature and Culture, 1880-1959

What the author identifies in this wide-ranging exchange is the Caribbean’s vital contribution not only to the literatures of the American hemisphere but also to the literary and intellectual culture of the United States itself. Specifically, he shows how such movements as pan-Africanism, the New Negro Renaissance, and pan-American modernism have significant Caribbean roots, although the United States has often failed to recognize them, effectively "purloining" those resources without acknowledgment. As his title’s allusion to Poe’s "The Purloined Letter" suggests, Karem argues that the contributions of the Caribbean have been borrowed, appropriated, and nationalized by U.S. culture but are hidden in plain sight. Both its multilingual character and its emphasis on the reciprocity in cultural cross-currents will make the book of interest to readers not only in Caribbean and American cultural and literary studies but also in pan-American or border studies, Black Atlantic studies, and African American studies.