Caryl Phillips and the Heroic

Authors

  • Ulla Rahbek Associate Professor, Postcolonial Studies Department of English, Germanic And Romance Studies University of Copenhagen

Keywords:

Caryl Phillips, heroic, heroes, dignity, courage, no-sayers, fiction, non-fiction

Abstract

This article explores the notion of the heroic in fictional and non-fictional work by Black British writer Caryl Phillips. Taking a point of departure in an ambivalent Caribbean longing for heroes, the piece discusses hero-theory and its usefulness for the types of heroes found in in Phillips’ writing. It focusses in particular on Crossing the River, The Atlantic Sound and A Distant Shore in its elaboration on what constitutes a Phillipsian heroic and how and where to locate these heroes. Traits such as dignity, courage, the clarity of no-saying and global ways of being and seeing emerge as heroic traits and are discussed with references also to some of Phillips’ essay from both A New World Order and Colour me English.

Author Biography

Ulla Rahbek, Associate Professor, Postcolonial Studies Department of English, Germanic And Romance Studies University of Copenhagen

Ulla Rahbek is associate professor of postcolonial and global studies at Copenhagen University, Denmark. Her research and publications are primarily concerned with Black British and contemporary multicultural British literature and culture, diasporic and Australian literature, and postcolonial studies in general. Her most recent publications are In search of the Afropolitan (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), co-authored with Eva Rask Knudsen, and Global Voices (Gyldendal, 2016).

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Published

2017-08-24