Castaway
eBook - PDF

Castaway

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Castaway

About this book

In Castaway Yvette Christiansë presents an epic yet fragmented poetic story set off the coast of Africa on the island of St. Helena: Napoleon Bonaparte's final place of exile, a port of call for the slave trade, and birthplace of the poet's grandmother. Amid echoes of racialized identity and issues of displacement, the poems in Castaway speak with a multiplicity of voices—from Ferñao Lopez (the island's first exile) and Napoleon to that of a contemporary black woman. Castaway is simultaneously a song of discovery, an anthem of conquest, and a tortured lamentation of exiles and slaves.
Instead of offering a linear narrative, Christiansë renders the poems as if they were emerging from the pages of imaginary books, documents now disrupted and scattered. An emperor's point of view is juxtaposed with the perspectives of various explorers, sailors, and unknown slaves until finally they all open upon the book's "castaway," the authorial female voice that negotiates a way to write about love and desire after centuries of oppression and exploitation.
Daring and sophisticated, Castaway challenges and captivates the reader with not only its lyrical richness and conceptual depth but also its implicit and haunting reflections on diaspora and postcolonialism. It will be highly regarded by readers and writers of poetry and will appeal to those engaged with issues of race, gender, exile, multiculturalism, colonialism, and history.

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Yes, you can access Castaway by Yvette Christiansë in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & African Poetry. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. The Name of the Island
  3. The Island Sings Its Name
  4. And All Things Come to Pass
  5. On Being Restless
  6. Letter to General D'Albuquerque - On the Pleasures of Taste
  7. Letter to General D'Albuquerque - On the Pleasures of Touch
  8. Letter to General D'Albuquerque - On Desire
  9. Letter to General D'Albuquerque - On Solitude
  10. Letter to General D'Albuquerque - On Forgiveness
  11. For the Devout Mouth
  12. For the Record
  13. Sleigh Ride
  14. The Enemies of Progress
  15. Neccessary Things
  16. The Emperor Considers the Fate of His Book
  17. Last Battles
  18. A Very Sick Man
  19. One More Mile, One More Town
  20. Face to Face
  21. Brotherhood
  22. And What of Africa?
  23. Another Strange Night
  24. For the Arrival of a Serious Enemy
  25. Gold
  26. Sunday School
  27. The Sleeper
  28. Blow the Wind Southerly
  29. And Bring Him to Me
  30. Courtship
  31. Fire on Board
  32. Man in a Room
  33. What the Girl Who Was a Cabin Boy Heard or Said - Which is Not Clear
  34. Geography Lesson
  35. On Hearing of the Exiled Prophet
  36. In the Hull
  37. Under the Feet of Angels
  38. When All Else Fails
  39. Felony
  40. Contagion
  41. The Enlightenment Sees Its Face in a Different Light
  42. Even When They Smile They Smoulder
  43. Sometimes the Surfface of Water, Sometimes a Mirror - The Horror
  44. Nightwatch
  45. A Dictionary of Surrvival
  46. Memorial
  47. Floating
  48. Middle Passage
  49. She Feels the Vanishing Sickness Move behind Her Navel
  50. The Face of the Deep
  51. Eclipse
  52. Adrift
  53. In the Maw
  54. In the Wake
  55. An Easter Confession, of Sorts
  56. For Strength in the Face of a Powerful Enemy
  57. Desire
  58. Devilry
  59. Aubade
  60. For a Lover Who Keeps to Another Hemisphere
  61. Sweeter and Dearer
  62. Is It Not Sweet?
  63. Southerly, Southerly
  64. Moon
  65. Now That She Is a Woman Herself
  66. With the Art of Birds
  67. She Oberves the Blue Bird
  68. A Riddle to Save Face
  69. The Cabin Gril Sees on All Sides Evidence of the Dream
  70. She Looks Up and Points
  71. The Beautiful Flood
  72. What Is Out There?
  73. Some of the Women
  74. Behind My Back
  75. She Confesses
  76. Land Ahead
  77. Headwind
  78. The Cabin Girl Sings, of Love, Reluctantly and ino an Empty Sky
  79. And When I Write the Muscles in My Chest Move as if in Flight
  80. The Voyage Out
  81. St. Helena - Time Line