THE MEMORY OF DIFFERENT RHYTHMS AND COLOURS IN E. K. BRATHWAITE’S THE ARRIVANTS
THE MEMORY OF DIFFERENT RHYTHMS AND COLOURS IN E. K. BRATHWAITE’S THE ARRIVANTS

Summary/Abstract: As a poet and a historian, the Barbadian author Edward Kamau Brathwaite contributed significantly to the configuration of the contemporary multifarious Caribbean cultural identity worldwide. Published in late 1960s, his first poetic work, The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy, is one of the most innovative compositions, which has established him as a transnational griot, whose function has been to guard many of the specificities of the Afro-Caribbean cultural memory. Apart from his poetic work, Brathwaite’s research on folk culture, Creole society in Jamaica, cultural diversity and history of the voice in the Caribbean has demonstrated an increasing awareness regarding the multicultural phenomenon of hybridization in the region, often conflictual, yet in search of sublime balance. In this context, the poet’s experience of migration and his encounter with the image of the Other as Self in Western literature and history generated a particular feeling regarding prosody and subjectivity. This essay explores the novelty of Brathwaite’s trilogy in conjunction with his subsequent cultural theses developed in his nonpoetic works and their relevance for cultural memory.

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