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

Brown notes that in Clarke's works the satiric contempt for corruption combines with "an insistence on the creative possibilities of life itself' (186). At the end of the novel, before entering Harrison College Clarke remembers: "I knew then that the time had come for me to dream of a new beginning." (192) Growing up "stupid" under the Union Jack did not prevent Clarke from going on and finding new possibilities for developing himself. Gaston Bachelard's comment holds true for Clarke, "Spaces remain in our memories and become creative" (10). There is a generational distance but not a literary discontinuity between Austin Clarke and Dionne Brand. Belonging to the African diaspora Brand was born in Trinidad, and left for Toronto in 1970, where she studied English and philosophy. She has become known as a poet, fiction writer, university lecturer, oral historian, filmmaker, and also as social activist supporting black and feminist/lesbian communities. It is in the authentic black experience that most interest lies in Brand's works. In an interview with Linda Hutcheon she says, "Basically, I really didn't think of myself as an immigrant per se. ... I knew that the problems that I would have would not stem from my being an immigrant, but would stem from being black." (272) It is not only Clarke that Brand has often been compared to but also Neil Bissoondath but for different reasons. Bissoondath's endeavours are realized in universalizing human experience. In contrast Brand claims to Hucheon, "I am wary of appeals to universality. ... I write about what is specific" (272-3). When she talks about her place on the Canadian literary scene and the dialectics of her identity she says in the interview mentioned above: Yes. I've heard other writers talk about being on the margins of Canadian writing. I find myself in the middle of black writing. I'm in in the centre of black writing, and those are the sensibilities that I check to figure out something that's truthful. I write out of a literaure, a genre, a tradition, and that tradition is the tradition of black writing. And whether that writing comes from the United States as African American writing or African Carribean writing or African writing from the continent, it's in that tradition that I work. I grew up under a colonial system of education, where I read English literature, and I liked it because I love words. But within that writing, there was never my presence. I was absent from that writing. (273) (emphasis added) 211