Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Master's Theses Graduate College 12-1972 A Bibliographical Survey of the West Indian Novel Ruta Mara Sani Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses Part of the Translation Studies Commons Recommended Citation Sani, Ruta Mara, "A Bibliographical Survey of the West Indian Novel" (1972). Master's Theses. 2806. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/2806 This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE WEST INDIAN NOVEL by Ruta Mara Sani A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Science in Librarianship Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan December 1972 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writing of this thesis could never have been accomplished on the island of St. Thomas without the indefatigable help of Dr. Laurel Grotzinger and Mr. William K. Smith who have written numerous letters of instructions and encouragement. My thanks go to them as well as to all those people on St. Thomas who have helped with sug­ gestions and by making their private libraries available to me. The help of others in no way releases me from the responsibility for the content material included in this thesis. Ruta Mara Zucker Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. 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Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 A Xerox Education Company Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MASTERS THESIS M-4115 SANI, Ruta Mara A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE WEST INDIAN NOVEL. Western Michigan University, M.S.L., 1972 Language and Literature, m o d e m University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION................. 1 II. THE CULTURAL E«. ..GROUND OF THE WEST IND I E S ......... 4 III. A CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY OF WEST INDIAN AUTHORS AND THEIR WORKS ................................. 12 1903 to 1919: The Early Y e a r s .................. 13 1920-1940: Setting the Mood .................... 17 The 1940’s: Trying out Literary Wings ........... 22 The 1950's: Voices from E x i l e ................... 23 The 1960's: The World without H e r o e s ........... 43 IV. GENERAL TRENDS IN THE WEST INDIAN N O V E L ........... 54 APPENDIX A: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WEST INDIAN N O V E L S ............ 69 APPENDIX B: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SELECTED INPRINT BOOKS . T ..................................... 86 SELECTED SECONDARY BIBLIOGRAPHY................................. 119 iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION The concern of this paper is to survey West Indian fictional writings in the English language with the main emphasis on the novel as a representative expression of West Indian literature. For the purposes of this paper, ’West Indies’ and 'West Indian’ refer to the former British islands in the Caribbean Sea and to Guyana which is located on the northeastern tip of the South American continent. All the authors covered in this work were either born or raised in the West Indies.* The original language of their fictional writings is English, but this literature is distinguished from all other English literature because these novels draw on West Indian materials. This paper is the outgrowth of an effort to collect and orga­ nize a list of representative West Indian authors and their works which could serve as a critical survey of writings for the study of this literature. Many of the novels of these authors are ’out of print’ and difficult to secure, others are published by small publi­ shing houses in limited quantities. While it is one of the hopes of this author that by compiling such a list, the republication of some of these volumes might be facilitated, it also has the interim *The author, Peter Abrahams, is an exception. He was born in South Africa and did not make his home in Jamaica till he was in his twenties. However, Abrahams claims to be a Jamaican and his works are included in the Appendices of this paper. 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. effect of limiting the details which this paper can supply. It is for this reason that some of the ’out of print’ novels, which could not be secured in the rare book collections of New York and the local libraries of the islands, are discussed in the main body of the paper referring to materials gleaned from secondary sources. The body of this paper is divided into three chapters. Chapter II is an historical essay tracing the socio-economic, political and cultural factors of the islands as they influenced the development of a literature and the novel in particular. Chapter III is a chronological survey of West Indian authors and their works. The individual writers are discussed separately using their novels to give expression to their authorial voice. Chapter IV summarizes the general trends in the west Indian novel as a whole giving titles of novels to illustrate a specific trend. Appendix A is a bibliographic listing of West Indian novels including both inprint and out of print works. The arrangement is alphabetical by author and title. Appendix B gives an annotated bibliography of selected inprint novels. The arrangement is alpha­ betical by author and chronological by the first publication date of that author’s work. Before entering into the main body of this paper, certain limits must be recognized lest the reader expect more guidance than is available. Though effort has been made to locate several reviews of those novels which are ’out of print’ and the originals unavail­ able, the completeness of this paper has been obviously limited. It Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. has also been necessary to omit some recent titles from Appendix B, the annotated 'inprint * book section of this paper, because these volumes could not be obtained on the island of St. Thomas. The general procedure followed in compiling the material has been to check all possible periodical publications for complete bibliographical information, talking to librarians and knowledgable people on the islands and checking all materials in the island libraries and private book collections pertaining to the West Indies Once a West Indian author's name was found, a methodical search was made through the American Books in Print,^ and British Books in Print,^ covering years 1960-1970, to find titles of publications. An invaluable source of materials has been Ramchand's work which was published after this paper had already been started. ii Ramchand’s ’’Author Bibliography” , covering 1903 to June, 1967, served as an excellent check list. A most helpful source has been j - .. the bibliographical articles written by the same author in The Journal of Ccxrl&nwealth. Literature.^ iBooks in Print; an author-tit1e-series index to the Publishers Trade List Annual (New York: R. R. Bowker Co., 1948 — ^British Books in Print; the reference catalogue of current literature (London; Whitaker, 1965 ). Formerly the Reference Catalogue of Current Literature (London: Whitaker, 1874-1961). ^Kenneth Ramchand, The West Indian Novel and Its Background (London: Faber, 1970). (Hereinafter referred to as Novel and Background.) 4Ibid., pp. 274-278. ^The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (London; Heinemanh, 1965 U S ‘ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.