Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles » (New Edition)

Thomas Glave is the author of Whose Song? And Other Stories; the essay collection Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent, a Lambda Literary Award winner; and the forthcoming short fiction collection, The Torturer’s Wife. Born to Jamaican parents in the Bronx and raised there and in Jamaica, Glave is a founding member of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG). He teaches in the English Department at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and is the 2008–2009 Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

An anthology of queer writing from the Caribbean.

Publishers Weekly

This sometimes sexy, sometimes dry, but often lush collection of stories by Caribbean gay and lesbian writers is a mixed bag. Certain selections, such as Wesley E.A. Crichlow's "History, (Re)Memory, Testimony, and Biomythography" and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes's heavily footnoted "Postdata: metatextual wings of a dove" will likely put off all but academics. More accessible are Michelle Cliff's "Ecce Homo," a tale of star-crossed male lovers in Rome during WWII, which has the romantic distance of a sepia photograph, and José Alcántara Almánzar's portrayal of a transvestite in "Lulú or the Metamorphosis." Many of the writings from the 1990s tackle oppression and are tragic in tone. Shani Mootoo's sassy patois story, "Out on Main Street," about how she and her girlfriend negotiate their sexuality in a sweet shop, is refreshingly upbeat, and Audre Lorde's two stories, one about rebuilding in St. Croix after hurricane Hugo, the other a meditation on home and her mother's nostalgia for Grenada-neither of which addresses sexuality-widen the book's somewhat claustrophobic focus. (June)

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Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Desire through the Archipelago   Thomas Glave     1
Lulu or the Metamorphosis (1995)   Jose Alcantara Almanzar     13
Property Values (2001)   Aldo Alvarez     21
Eroticism (1992)   Reinaldo Arenas     34
Three Poems: Saturday Night in San Juan with the Right Sailors (2004) Almost a Revolution for Two in Bed (2004) Tropical Fever (2003)   Rane Arroyo     51
Three Poems: Transactions (2001) San Francisco-New Orleans (2001) The Image Saves (1994)   Jesus J. Barquet     53
Somebody Has to Cry (1998)   Marilyn Bobes     57
Elizete, Beckoned (1996)   Dionne Brand     70
"Bullers" and "Battymen": Contesting Homophobia in Black Popular Culture and Contemporary Caribbean Literature (1997)   Timothy S. Chin     78
Ecce Homo (2002)   Michelle Cliff     97
History, (Re) Memory, Testimony, and Biomythography: Charting a Buller Man's Trinidadian Past (2004)   Wesley E. A. Crichlow     101
Other Islanders on Lesbos: A Retrospective Look at the History of Lesbians in Cuba (2004)   Mabel Cuesta     132
Autonomy in Lesbian-Feminist Politics (2004)   Ochy Curiel     142
Three Poems: YoungFaggot (2003) The Magical Real (2003) Surrender (2003)   Faizal Deen     153
The Portrait (1998)   Pedro De Jesus     158
Tante Merle (1999)   R. Erica Doyle     173
Whose Caribbean? An Allegory, in Part (2005)   Thomas Glave     177
More Notes on the Invisibility of Caribbean Lesbians (2005)   Rosamond S. King     191
Independence Day Letter (2004)   Helen Klonaris     197
Travel Notes of a Queer Puerto Rican in Havana (2002)   Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes     202
Of Generators and Survival: Hugo Letter (1990) From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)   Audre Lorde     233
Out on Main Street (1993)   Shani Mootoo     252
Time and Tide (2002)   Anton Nimblett     261
We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? (1994)   Achy Obejas     268
The Hunter (1999)   Leonardo Padura Fuentes     281
The Face (1956)   Virgilio Pinera     290
Dale and Ian (1994)   Patricia Powell     296
Genesis (2003)   Kevin Everod Quashie     304
Bayamon, Brooklyn y yo (1987)   Juanita Ramos     308
The Mechanic (1998)    Colin Robinson     316
Haiti: A Memory Journey (1996)   Assotto Saint     320
Johnnie, London, 1960 (1960)   Andrew Salkey     325
I Want to Follow My Friend (1994)   Lawrence Scott     336
Man Royals and Sodomites: Some Thoughts on the Invisibility of Afro-Caribbean Lesbians (1992)   Makeda Silvera     344
Jerome (1993)   H. Nigel Thomas     355
Fragments of Toronto's Black Queer Community: From a Life Still Being Lived (2005)   Rinaldo Walcott     360
Mati-ism and Black Lesbianism: Two Idealtypical Expressions of Female Homosexuality in Black Communities of the Diaspora (1996)   Gloria Wekker     368
On Homophobia and Gay Rights Activism in Jamaica (2000)   Lawson Williams     382
Glossary     389
Contributors     393