Title: Defining Jamaican fiction
First published: 1996
Description: Marronage - the process of flight by slaves from servitude to establish their own hegemonies in inhospitable or wild territories - had its beginnings in the early 1500s in Hispaniola, the first European settlement in the New World. As fictional personae the maroons continue to weave in and out of oral and literary tales as central and ancient characters of Jamaica's heritage.

Attributes of the maroon character surface in other character types that crowd Jamaica's literary history - resentful strangers, travelers, and fugitives; desperate misfits and strays; recluses, rejects, wild men, and outcasts; and rebels in physical and psychological wildernesses. Defining Jamaican Fiction identifies the place of Jamaican fiction in the larger regional literature and focuses on its essential themes and strategies of discourse for conveying these themes.
Subjects: Blacks in literature, Literature and society, Maroonsin literature, History and criticism, Maroons in literature, Social isolation in literature, Fugitive slaves in literature, English fiction, Jamaican fiction, In literature, Caribbean literature, history and criticism, Slavery in literature, Black people in literature
Places: Jamaica
LC classification: PR9265.4