Claude McKay: The Literary Identity from Jamaica to Harlem and Beyond - Softcover

Ramesh, Kotti Sree; Rani, Kandula Nirupa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786425822 ISBN 13: 9780786425822

Publisher: McFarland & Co, 2006

Synopsis

The gifted and rebellious writer Claude McKay grew up in the British West Indies and then moved to the United States. As he traveled from Jamaica to Harlem and then to Europe and Africa, he embraced various causes and political ideologies that made their way into his writings. Brought up as a colonial in the British West Indies, he found racial oppression as an immigrant in the United States. His struggle for self-definition and self-determination was manifest in his writings and laid the foundation for the Harlem Renaissance and negritude movements.

African American scholarship in the United States tends to focus on McKay's American productions, such as his poetry and novels like Home to Harlem, while critics in the Caribbean focus on his works there: novels like Banana Bottom and dialect poetry. This study has undertaken to explore comprehensively the life and works of Claude McKay, framed within colonial and cross-cultural experiences. While dealing with pertinent issues like identity, race, exile, ethnicity, and sexuality, the work examines all the facets of this influential 20th century author, a man trying to solve the problem of his own identity in a world determined to marginalize him.

About this title

About the Authors

Kotti Sree Ramesh is an associate professor of English at Adikavi Nannaya University-Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Kandula Nirupa Rani is Vice Chancellor at Adikavi Nannaya University in Rajahmundry, India.

Edition details

• Publisher: McFarland & Co
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786425822
• ISBN 13: 9780786425822
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216