Diaspora and Hybridity: Jewish American Women Write the Caribbean

Linda Weinhouse; Efraim Sicher

doi:10.2307/j.ctvq4bz53.12

Diaspora and Hybridity: Jewish American Women Write the Caribbean

Linda Weinhouse
, Efraim Sicher

Department of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review

Abstract

This essay examines how two Jewish American writers, Achy Obejas and Alice Hoffman, use the Sephardic Caribbean experience to construct subversive postcolonial and diasporic identities. We will focus in particular on how they romanticize Sephardic history in the Caribbean and ask to what extent this opens fixed categories and engages with postcolonial narratives. Obejas and Hoffman raise issues that are common to Caribbean literature, such as creolization and hybridity, and they uncover passions and family secrets from the past that subvert myths of lineage and heritage.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Caribbean Jewish Crossings
Subtitle of host publication	Literary History and Creative Practice
Editors	Sarah Phillips Casteel, Heidi Kaufman
Pages	154-174
Number of pages	21
ISBN (Electronic)	9780813943305
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvq4bz53.12
State	Published - Oct 2019

Keywords

Sephardim -- Caribbean Area
Obejas
Achy
1956- -- Criticism and interpretation
Hoffman
Alice -- Criticism and interpretation
Jewish women authors -- United States
Sephardim in literature

Access to Document

10.2307/j.ctvq4bz53.12

Cite this

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abstract = "This essay examines how two Jewish American writers, Achy Obejas and Alice Hoffman, use the Sephardic Caribbean experience to construct subversive postcolonial and diasporic identities. We will focus in particular on how they romanticize Sephardic history in the Caribbean and ask to what extent this opens fixed categories and engages with postcolonial narratives. Obejas and Hoffman raise issues that are common to Caribbean literature, such as creolization and hybridity, and they uncover passions and family secrets from the past that subvert myths of lineage and heritage. ",

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KW - 1956- -- Criticism and interpretation

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KW - Alice -- Criticism and interpretation

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KW - Sephardim in literature

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ER -

Diaspora and Hybridity: Jewish American Women Write the Caribbean

Abstract

Keywords

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