Ana Rodriguez-Navas

The first book-length study of gossip‚Äôs place in the literature of the multilingual Caribbean reveals gossip to be a utilitarian and deeply political practice‚Äîa means of staging the narrative tensions,¬†and waging the narrative battles, that mark Caribbean politics and culture. Revising the overly gendered existing critical frame, Rodr√≠guez¬†Navas¬†argues that gossip is a fundamentally adversarial practice that at once surveils identities and empowers writers to skirt sanitized, monolithic historical accounts by weaving alternative versions of their nations‚Äô¬†histories from this self-governing discursive material.¬†Reading recent fiction from the Hispanic, Anglophone, and Francophone Caribbean and their diasporas, alongside poetry, song lyrics, journalism, memoirs, and political essays,¬†Idle Talk, Deadly Talk¬†maps gossip‚Äôs place¬†in the Caribbean and reveals its rich possibilities as both literary theme and narrative device.

Idle Talk, Deadly Talk

Ana Rodriguez-Navas

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