"Culture, Nature, and the Other in Caribbean Literature appears to be the first ecological literary history of the francophone and Hispanophone Caribbean. In it, Mary Ann Gosser Esquilín employs an eco-feminist approach to analyse novels from Cuba, Haiti, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, dating from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century...Gosser Esquilín begins by invoking the stark contrast between the construction of the Caribbean qua tourist paradise and the region’s difficult past and present, marked by genocide, slavery, indenture, environmental destruction, and other linked forms of exploitation. These hard truths, Gosser Esquilín argues, constitute the ‘unlit’ side of tourism produced by the material and textual violence of colonialist heteropatriarchy that began when Columbus stumbled upon the New World…[and is] the author of the founding script of European modernity that legitimated the European slave trade and white supremacy, on the one hand, and the European land grab and exploitation of all non-human natural resources, on the other…One of the founding principles of Gosser Esquilín’s book is that Caribbean writers have long resisted and rescripted the Columbian vision of the New World…[and] highlighted the humanity and agency of Afro-Caribbean, Indigenous, and white female subjects, and exposed the interdependence of humans, other animals, and their environment. They portrayed Indigenous, Afro-Caribbean, and other non-European cosmologies with respect, as powerful and aligned. Through this framework, Gosser Esquilín uncovers a shared visions among radically different novels…A significant contribution.” —Journal of West Indian Literature
"Well-written and well-conceived, this study provides careful, succinct, and close ecocritical readings of several Caribbean texts. A strength of the study is its embrace of the multilingualism of the Caribbean, as well as its nuanced understanding and clear communication of the cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity of the region. A further strength of this work is its engagement with a range of theoretical contributions by ecocritical scholars. Culture, Nature, and the Other in Caribbean Literature: An Ecocritical Approach is an accomplished and welcome contribution to ecocriticism and Caribbean studies and will interest readers in both fields." —Laura Barbas Rhoden, Professor of Spanish, Wofford College
"Fully versed in contemporary decolonial, ecofeminist, environmental justice, transhumanist and ecocritical work, Mary Ann Gosser Esquilín brilliantly illuminates Caribbean literary works that, from colonial times through today, have challenged oppressive social construction of the human, the pernicious alliance of rationalism and domination, and the wasting wrought through Western heteropatriarchy, while also affirming the agency of women and other marginalized groups as well as the more than human (including spirits), natural diversity, trans and queer eco-realities, the complexity of the monstrous, and the representation of 'nature' as more than what the master’s eye can or will behold. Culture, Nature, and the Other in Caribbean Literature is an invaluable work, necessarily enriching and deepening the field of ecocriticism and making a definitive case for the incorporation of Caribbean literature into the heart of environmental theory and ecocriticism." —Jane Caputi, Professor, Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Communication & Multimedia, Florida Atlantic University
"Through an ecocritical lens, Gosser Esquilín offers an incisive study of colonial, romantic, and postmodern Caribbean literature. Theoretically grounded on interrelationships and interconnectedness, the book proposes a relational poetics to overcome binary perceptions of subjects, cultures, and races. The author’s comparative approach as well as her penetrating analyses of well-known and lesser-known Spanish and Francophone texts from the Caribbean underscore the interconnectedness of the region. For its singularity and rigor, this book is a valuable resource for academics and specialists of Caribbean literature." —Elena Martinez, Professor of Latin American Literature, Baruch College of the City University of New York (CUNY)and CUNY, Graduate Center
"A wonderfully wide-ranging study offering a series of incisive and insightful explorations of Caribbean texts from across the archipelago. Whether rereading canonical works by the likes of Alejo Carpentier and Jacques Roumain or spotlighting little-studied novels such as those of the Indo-Guadeloupean author Jacqueline Manicom, Gosser-Esquilín provides consistently original and thought-provoking analyses of how the relationship between human and more-than-human natures shapes cultural expression. A timely and important contribution to ecocritical studies of Caribbean literature, this book should be read by all those interested in the political ecologies of power and resistance." —Michael Niblett, Associate Professor of Modern World Literature, University of Warwick
“Deftly organized in three main sections—Reflections, Refractions, and Decompositions—Culture, Nature, and the Other in Caribbean Literature is a tour de force of comparative Caribbean environmental and postcolonial literary studies. In exploring ecological and personal histories of trauma, Mary Ann Gosser Esquilín incisively balances human and more-than-human complexities, interdependence, and dispossession along the junctures of race, gender, and class relations. With lyricism and verve, she leads us through the prism of colonialism, from discourses of domination, ruptures, and extinctions to invigorating readings of hybridization, coexistence, and creative survivals.”—Ivette Romero, Professor of Spanish, Marist College
