What Women Lose: Exile And The Construction Of Imaginary Homelands In Novels By Caribbean Writers

This book examines novels by women from the anglophone, francophone, and hispanophone Caribbean that focus on marginalized female characters who migrate to metropolitan centers. The novels studied require cultural, historical, sociological, anthropological, and geographic readings to fully explore the complexity of the characters as they confront the varied and changing challenges, hardships, and pleasures of the diaspora. The critical approach focuses on the characters' attempts to hold on to acceptable realities by assuming the appropriate interpersonal, social, and cultural masks that allow them to find a sense of significance in their interior, domestic, and community lives.

The Author: María Cristina Rodríguez obtained her Ph.D. in comparative literature at the Graduate Center/City University of New York and teaches at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. She is co-editor of Sargasso, a journal of Caribbean studies, and film critic for the weekly newspaper Claridad. She has published widely in scholarly journals on Caribbean women’s writings, ideology in film, and migration and diaspora narratives.