Smith, and Betia Boe Stolar situate Clarke’s books in place and time but also descriptively situate the criticism that has slowly grown in weight over that half century. The essays by Smaro Kamboureli, Michael A. George Elliott Clarke situates the half century of writing in the Caribbean/Canadian historical context, and he is meticulously clear in pointing out the conflicts and contradictions that lie as sand traps in such subject matter and that perhaps frighten the non-Caribbean scholar off the course. This collection repeats this paradigm but offers a base for travelling beyond it. Coleman’s simple point that most of the academic criticism of Clarke’s work has still come from those “who share the Caribbean background” is valid and yet unsettling, as Clarke’s readership clearly has gone far beyond that constituency. The book’s value is in its detailed literary analysis and comparative commentary, especially that by Daniel Coleman, George Elliott Clarke, and Victor J.

And, in any case, Clarke has been a very busy writer since 1994. Indeed, it would be difficult for anyone to write further on this author without working from this text, which goes far beyond Dr. Most of the essays demonstrate new observations on the Caribbean immigrant literature that Clarke helped to make a place for in Canada back in the mid-1960s.

They are at times challenging and even merciless, in particular when they approach Clarke’s conflicted responses to Conservative politics and attitudes in a society he continues to ravage for its racist foundations. The twelve essays and one interview cover the varied kinds of material Clarke has produced, and are informed largely by post-colonial and feminist criticism. This new book, the third on Clarke’s writings, collects critical essays right up to 2013. His first thirty years of work was addressed by Stella Algoo Baksh in her 1994 critical biography.

For fifty years now Austin Clarke has been publishing in Canada.

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