Bringing together the most exciting recent archival work inanglophone, francophone, and hispanophone Caribbean studies, Raphael Dalleoconstructs a new literary history of the region that is both comprehensive andinnovative. He examines how changes in political, economic, and social structureshave produced different sets of possibilities for writers to imagine theirrelationship to the institutions of the public sphere. In the process, he provides anew context for rereading such major writers as Mary Seacole, Jos Mart, JacquesRoumain, Claude McKay, Marie Chauvet, and George Lamming while also drawinglesser-known figures into the story. Dalleo's comparative approach will be importantto Caribbeanists from all of the region's linguistic traditions, and his bookcontributes even more broadly to debates in Latin American and postcolonial studiesabout postmodernity and globalization.