Ancestors [Paperback]

Kamau Brathwaite (Author)

Book Description

Series: New Directions Paperbook | Publication Date: June 29, 2001

The long-awaited single volume of Kamau Brathwaite's landmark trilogy--Mother Poem, Sun Poem, and X/Self-- now completely revised, expanded, and reinvented by the author. Ancestors is a startling reinvention of one of the most important long poems of our hemisphere. The original three volumes, Mother Poem, Sun Poem, and X/Self (1977, 1982, and 1987, Oxford University Press), widely recognized as crucial to Kamau Brathwaite's work, have long been unavailable in the US. Ancestors, which completely revises the trilogy, rediscovers Barbados -- the place, its history and ethos -- as well as the poet's family and childhood. With its "Video Sycorax" typographic inventions and linguistic play, Ancestors liberates both the language and the new-Caliban vision of the poet. In its new and more experimental form the trilogy embodies the recapture (what the poet has called the "intercovery") of Brathwaite's African/Caribbean ancestry as a possession of power and renewal, even as it plumbs the deep tonalities of enslavement, oppression, and colonial dispossession.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A number of august poet and scholar Brathwaite's recent books of poetry contain substantial revisions of earlier works; this 20th collection is the latest and most compelling of them, collecting in one volume a trilogy--Mother Poem, Sun Poem and X/Self--first published by Oxford University Press between 1977 and 1987. Mother Poem depicts familial and social life in Barbados, while Sun Poem focuses on a father and the growth of a young son, and X/Self posits its mature subject within a larger history that reaches at least as far back to the time when "Rome burns/ & our slavery begins." Ancestors recasts all three books by stressing as strongly as possible the spoken aspects of the text (thereby allowing regional and local dialects to threaten the homogenizing tendencies of "proper" English), cladding them in jagged breaks, computerized glyphs, "Sycorax video style" type, extended puns and unorthodox spellings: "cause no bright/ man cyaaan be// faddah to faddah to faddah/ to sun// if e nevvah get chance/ to the son// light." Extensive passages describe boys fighting, men fishing, women cleaning and adolescents flirting, but at the same time Brathwaite sketches a vast, economically determined history encompassing the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and the Middle East--as if the shadows of Prospero, Caliban and Miranda extended from the plantation (a frequent setting) across the globe, fiercely throwing exploitation, misery, loneliness, joy, celebration, dignity and humanity into bold, intensely detailed relief. (Feb. 27)Forecast: Derek Walcott and Jamaica Kincaid may get all the press, but Brathwaite is one of the most significant Caribbean-born writers of the 20th century and is recognized as such by academia if not by trade readers. This book will find its way onto varied syllabi and into countless university libraries; smaller poetry collections may want to make the shorter Middle Passages their one Brathwaite.

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Review

His dazzling, inventive language, his tragic yet unquenchable vision make Brathwaite one of the most compelling of late 20th-century poets. -- Adrienne Rich

Kamau Brathwaite is one of the most important poets in the Western Hemisphere. A musicianly sensibility of sharp political reference. -- Amiri Baraka

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation (June 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811214486
• ISBN-13: 978-0811214483
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #434,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Caribbean

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars (Re)Invention of an Invention, October 20, 2002

By 

Emily Williams (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ancestors (Paperback)

Ancestors is a "must' read for scholars and critics of Caribbean literature and poetry. Brathwaite (re)invents an invention - a technique that must be recognized as his signature. He is clearly "the" unique voice in the Anglophone Caribbean Literary Canon. My book, The Critical Response to Kamau Brathwaite, which will be published by Greenwood Press in 2003, will further demonstrate his artistry from the 1960s to the present.