Chloe Musson | University of Nottingham (original) (raw)
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Whilst the transatlantic slave trade affected both black and white people, the historical record ... more Whilst the transatlantic slave trade affected both black and white people, the historical record is predominantly culturally and racially univocal, heavily shaped by dominant western discourses. However, particularly since the 1980s, contemporary authors have sought out new literary forms to reflect slavery as a shared past with a legacy which endures into the twentyfirst century. Caryl Phillips and Fred D’Aguiar, in Crossing the River and The Longest Memory, return to the history of slavery to repopulate it with a multiplicity of perspectives, amalgamating different voices, documents, and literary styles in an attempt to construct a ‘polyphonic’ history that is collective rather than reductive. 2 Their intention gestures to Edward W. Said’s theory of contrapuntal reading. 3 Said sought to dismantle white, metropolitan history by revisiting colonial texts to reveal the voices that had been suppressed, arguing for ‘intertwined histories common to men and women, whites and non-whites’. 4
Whilst the transatlantic slave trade affected both black and white people, the historical record ... more Whilst the transatlantic slave trade affected both black and white people, the historical record is predominantly culturally and racially univocal, heavily shaped by dominant western discourses. However, particularly since the 1980s, contemporary authors have sought out new literary forms to reflect slavery as a shared past with a legacy which endures into the twentyfirst century. Caryl Phillips and Fred D’Aguiar, in Crossing the River and The Longest Memory, return to the history of slavery to repopulate it with a multiplicity of perspectives, amalgamating different voices, documents, and literary styles in an attempt to construct a ‘polyphonic’ history that is collective rather than reductive. 2 Their intention gestures to Edward W. Said’s theory of contrapuntal reading. 3 Said sought to dismantle white, metropolitan history by revisiting colonial texts to reveal the voices that had been suppressed, arguing for ‘intertwined histories common to men and women, whites and non-whites’. 4