Marine Cellier, Amina Damerdji & Sylvain Lloret (eds.), *La Fabrique de la race dans la Caraïbe de l'époque moderne à nos jours*. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2021. 258 pp. (Paper US$57.00)

The rise of White supremacy in many countries, along with the social protest movements following the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, have prompted renewed interest in race and racism in the political sphere and in academia as well. This is why we understand and appreciate the interest of this group of researchers from various backgrounds and fields with their investigative foci.

*La Fabrique de la race dans la Caraïbe* presents the proceedings of a 2017 colloquium entitled "*Construction et déconstruction de la race dans les Caraïbes, de l'époque moderne à nos jours*" at the Casa de Velázquez (a branch of the Académie de France based in Madrid). Bringing a significant contribution to critical conversations, it is an ambitious endeavor which covers a considerable span of time from the modern era to the present day. In addition to the foreword by Audrey Célestine, and an introduction by the editors, the book is divided into two main parts.

The first part, “The Various Fields of Racialization” is composed of five chapters. Elsa Dorlin shows how slave medical treatment helped shape the modern concept of race, arguing that polygenism was a dominant belief throughout the nineteenth century. Carlo Célius uses the known portraits of Toussaint Louverture and Faustin Soulouque (whose images were purposefully deformed by the painters) to demonstrate that anthropology, art history, and aesthetic theories contributed to racialization and processes of hierarchization. Sébastien Nicholas describes the problems caused by the presence of Haitian refugees in Jamaica in the 2000s; he explains how the Jamaican government and the press manipulated public opinion to the point where the Haitian refugees passed from being welcomed as brothers to becoming parasites who constitute a quadruple threat (economically and culturally, as well as for public safety and public health) to their own wellbeing. Éric Roulet questions the discourse that accompanies the hierarchization of the society of the Lesser Antilles, composed of “the inhabitants” (the French), “the savages” (the native inhabitants), and “the Blacks” (the enslaved). Tina Harpin explores the work of Guadeloupean Maryse Condé and John Maxwell Coetzee (born in South Africa, but a naturalized Australian), concluding that even though they came from different countries and backgrounds, they share some similarities, rejecting being labeled or put into prefabricated categories (by gender, race, or language). Harpin argues that Condé and Coetzee try not to deal with the subject of race in their writing but end up doing just that. And she shows us that literature

NEW WEST INDIAN GUIDE
also helped Condé and Coetzee better understand the racialization as well as
the social categorization of their societies.

Part Two, “Race and Taboos,” is also composed of five chapters. Justin Daniel analyzes the various conceptions of the notion of race in Martinique, viewing race as a dynamic phenomenon that is forged through social and political relations. Amina Damerdji discusses the invisibility of race in Cuban literature and the effects of abstract materialism, arguing that even though the Revolutionary regime repressed the discourse about race, Cuban authors talk about it implicitly or explicitly in their works. And she criticizes the form of “materialism that erases the bodies of its political subjects” (p. 255). Arturo Morgado-García’s interest lies in the fact that the topic of slavery was increasingly questioned in Spain at the end of the seventeenth century, in both the periodical press and literature. Jean-Luc Bonniol shows us that “racial thought,” as it appeared in the old (French) colonies, was grounded in the consideration of physical characteristics associated with skin color. In the final chapter, Matthieu Renault is interested in the “return of the concept race” since the 1970s, in the field of sociobiology. His essay seeks to promote an antiracist philosophy in the sciences.

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to the very complex and sensitive question of “race.” It is not just about the past, for it speaks to our time by providing the critical tools to better understand the complexity of race and racism in the Caribbean and in the world at large. It provides vital contents for understanding that historical racism in the arts and sciences could explain why the Black body is still considered inferior, and is still policed and criminalized. Anyone can benefit from this fascinating and eclectic work, since the articles emanate from the various fields of literature, anthropology, aesthetics, medicine, science, and more. All the essays are well written and only one is not directly related to the Caribbean, but the introduction and the foreword do a great job in contextualizing it.

Néné Ndiaye Diop

French Department, Colorado College, Colorado Springs CO, U.S.A.

ndiop@coloradocollege.edu