Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Judit Molnár: The Spatio-Temporal Dimension of Diasporic Discourse from the Carrebian on the Canadian Literary Scene

literature is well-established" (10) Austin C. Clarke has become "[Cjanada's first major black writer" (Algoo-Baksh 1994). His whole life continues to move back and forth between his Caribbean heritage and his Canadian affiliations. Duality has been at the core of his existence and doubleness continues to characterize his literary output, too. His contribution both to Canadian and Caribbean literatures is of real significance. Not only does he belong to these two bodies of literatures but he also belongs to these two countries in his different missions. He immigrated to Canada in 1955, when a huge flux of immigration started from the Caribbeans, but became a Canadian citizen only in 1981. He ran for election as a candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party in the Ontario government in 1977. He was an adviser to a Barbadian prime minister, was cultural attache to the Barbadian Embassy in Washington, and was on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada as well. He says in an interview with Linda Hutcheon: That is not to say that, now that I am a Canadian citizen, I am not Barbadian, because I am Barbadian by nature

—the best of me is Barbadian; the best of my memories are Barbadian. But when I look at my presence in this country, the problems of duality arise each time there is a threat to my stability, each time there is a slur on a whole group of persons with whom I could easily identify, each time there is a slur on a larger group of persons with whom I politically have to identify. (69) He has written several novels and a large number of short stories. In order to be able to find an explanation for his dual alliances, I have chosen to discuss his memoir Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack (1980), which provides the reader with the colonial roots of Clarke's development as a writer and as an individual. It is a narrative of transformation. Algoo-Baksh (166) considers the novel together with The Prime Minister (1978) and Proud Empires (1988) to form a trilogy in which "the works encompass the experience of essentially one protagonist who is the product of a colonial heritage" (166). Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack is at one level about Clarke's formative years in his childhood and adolescence, and on another level it describes the colonial society of Barbados in the 1930s and in the 1940s together with its relation to the outside world. It is the adult Clarke, who looks back on these years in his life in the process of 206