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Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays
Selected essays from the rich and complex collection of Edouard Glissant, one of the most prominent writers and intellectuals of the Caribbean, examine the psychological, sociological, and philosophical implications of cultural dependency.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Édouard Glissant
99 books181 followersÉdouard Glissant was a French writer, poet, philosopher, and literary critic from Martinique. He is widely recognised as one of the most influential figures in Caribbean thought and cultural commentary.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 2, 2024
Extremely wide-ranging—national language; literary criticism; Western linear and canonical History vis-à-vis the diverse multiple histories (“History is a highly functional fantasy of the West”) and fragmented chronologies of the Caribbean.
September 5, 2012
Unless you've lived on Martinique in the French West Indies, I'm not sure you can completely appreciate or understand what Glissant is trying to convey. I've only scratched the surface but then I only lived there a little over 2 years. This book is to be experienced on several levels and I admit that I am limited because of the relatively little time spent on the island. The parts that did speak to me were invaluable, but I would suggest that this book isn't for everyone; only the few that want to understand the French colonial mindset and the effect of that colonialism on the culture of the Béké.
January 13, 2026
3 ‘ln this way each discourse implies concurrence. It does not matter that our raw materials are not exhausted here, that the multinationals do not exploit us brutally, that pollution is still slight, that our people are not gunned down at every turn, and that we cannot imagine the terrible methods used here and there for profit and death—nevertheless, we are part of the disorientation of the world. A morbid unreason and a stubborn urgency makes us part of a global process. The same H bomb is for everyone.’
9 ‘Off the coast of Senegal, Gorée, the island before the open sea, the first step towards madness.
Then the sea, never seen from the depths of the ship's hold, punctuated by drowned bodies that sowed in its depths explosive seeds of absence.
The factory where you disembark, more patched together than rags, more sterile than a razed field. The choice of pillage.’
11 ‘(Our landscape is its own monument: its meaning can only be traced on the underside. It is all history.)’
52 ‘The flowers that grow today are cultivated for export [...] They are nothing but shape and color. I am struck by the fate of flowers. The shapeless yielding to the shapely [...] The flower without fragrance endures today, is maintained in form only’
63 ‘So much so that obscured history was often reduced for us to a chronology of natural events, retaining only their "explosive" emotional meanings. We would say: "the year of the great earthquake," or: "the year of the hurricane that flattened M. Celeste's house," or: "the year of the fire on Main Street." And that is precisely the recourse open to any community without a collective consciousness and detached from an awareness of itself.’
77 ‘Literature is not only fragmented, it is henceforth shared. In it lie histories and the voice of peoples. We must reflect on a new relationship between history and literature. We need to live it differently.’
83 ‘The forest of the maroon was thus the first obstacle the slave opposed to the transparency of the planter. There is no clear path, no way forward, in this density. You turn in obscure circles until you find the primordial tree.’
86 ‘The question we need to ask in Martinique will not be, for instance: “Who am I”—a question that from the outset is meaningfless—but rather: “Who are we?”’
106 ‘These observations are linked to the problem of the rhythmic structure of the literary work. The pattern of the seasons has perhaps shaped, in the works of Western literature, a balanced rhythm between neutral zones of narrative that are periodically crossed by explosive flashes that arouse the emotions and bring "revelation." A conclusive illustration of this technique is the European sonnet, with its final thrust that both summarizes and transcends the clear meaning of the poem. It appears that the forms of expression in black cultures do not follow this clever shifting from neutral to strong moments in the structure of a work. The unvarying season (the absence of a seasonal rhythm) leads to a monotony, a plainsong whose obsessive rhythm creates a new economy of the expressive forms. To aim for spectacular moments, or twists in the narrative, for "brainwaves," is perhaps for our writers to perpetrate at the technical level an unconscious and unjustified submissiveness to literary traditions alien to their own. Technical vigilance is here not a question of splitting hairs.’
114 ‘I remember (here in this land with the surging sea aIl around) the shadows cut into the night, disincarnate and wraithlike forms, the broken blossoms that have always haunted the canvases of Zanartu. Perhaps a future continuously postponed; but a despair unceasingly defied. That is what the present state of this America rekindles in our hearts.’
124 ‘speech was forbidden, slaves camouflaged the word under the provocative intensity of the scream’
139 ‘What is the Caribbean in fact? A multiple series of relationships. We all feel it, we express it in aIl kinds of hidden or twisted ways, or we fiercely deny it. But we sense that this sea exists within us with its weight of now revealed islands. The Caribbean Sea is not an American lake. It is the estuary of the Americas. In this context, insularity takes on another meaning. Ordinarily, insularity is treated as a form of isolation, a neurotic reaction to place. However, in the Caribbean each island embodies openness. The dialectic between inside and outside is reflected in the relationship of land and sea. It is only those who are tied to the European continent who see insularity as confining. A Caribbean imagination liberates us from being smothered.’
145 ‘my landscape changes in me; it is probably that it changes with me [...] And the language of my landscape is primarily that of the forest, which unceasingly bursts with life. I do not practice the economy of the meadow, I do not share the serenity of the spring.’
160 ‘But a scream is an act of excessiveness. Our land is excessive. I know, since I can in a few steps take it all in but can never exhaust it.’
162 ‘Time, which needs to be undated.’
169 ‘Is there anywhere else in the world where such human waste takes place and that the world has no time to notice? Not great catastrophes that are like monumental phenomena in the history of the world, but the shadowy accretions of misfortune, the unseen erosion of a cornered people, the unnoticed disappearance, the slow loss of identity, the suffering without consequence? If we posit that the issue of this collective and silent death must be removed from the economic dimension, if we argue that it can only be dealt with on the political level, it also seems that poetics, the implicit or explicit manipulation of self-expression, is at the same time the only weapon that memory has against this human waste and the only place to shed light on it, both in terms of an awareness of our place in the world and our reflection on the necessary and disalienated relationship with the Other. To declare one's own identity is to write the world into existence.’
244 ‘We do not dare admit that we like hurricanes. They bring us so much. The periodic shudder originating out there in the sea, the announcement that follows that we're an official "disaster area." Earthquakes terrify us. First of all, we have no warning: it is neither annual nor decennial. Then, it is too brief to be under- stood. Also, it sometimes causes too much damage. Mimesis operates like an earthquake. There is something in us that struggles against it, and we remain bewildered by it.’
245 ‘This discourse on discourse, situated at the confluence of oral and written, has attempted to adapt the form of one to the subject matter of the other. It was expressed in me as a melody and picked up again as plainsong, has been slowed down like a great drum, and sometimes has been fluent with the high-pitched intensity of small sticks on a little drum.’
9 ‘Off the coast of Senegal, Gorée, the island before the open sea, the first step towards madness.
Then the sea, never seen from the depths of the ship's hold, punctuated by drowned bodies that sowed in its depths explosive seeds of absence.
The factory where you disembark, more patched together than rags, more sterile than a razed field. The choice of pillage.’
11 ‘(Our landscape is its own monument: its meaning can only be traced on the underside. It is all history.)’
52 ‘The flowers that grow today are cultivated for export [...] They are nothing but shape and color. I am struck by the fate of flowers. The shapeless yielding to the shapely [...] The flower without fragrance endures today, is maintained in form only’
63 ‘So much so that obscured history was often reduced for us to a chronology of natural events, retaining only their "explosive" emotional meanings. We would say: "the year of the great earthquake," or: "the year of the hurricane that flattened M. Celeste's house," or: "the year of the fire on Main Street." And that is precisely the recourse open to any community without a collective consciousness and detached from an awareness of itself.’
77 ‘Literature is not only fragmented, it is henceforth shared. In it lie histories and the voice of peoples. We must reflect on a new relationship between history and literature. We need to live it differently.’
83 ‘The forest of the maroon was thus the first obstacle the slave opposed to the transparency of the planter. There is no clear path, no way forward, in this density. You turn in obscure circles until you find the primordial tree.’
86 ‘The question we need to ask in Martinique will not be, for instance: “Who am I”—a question that from the outset is meaningfless—but rather: “Who are we?”’
106 ‘These observations are linked to the problem of the rhythmic structure of the literary work. The pattern of the seasons has perhaps shaped, in the works of Western literature, a balanced rhythm between neutral zones of narrative that are periodically crossed by explosive flashes that arouse the emotions and bring "revelation." A conclusive illustration of this technique is the European sonnet, with its final thrust that both summarizes and transcends the clear meaning of the poem. It appears that the forms of expression in black cultures do not follow this clever shifting from neutral to strong moments in the structure of a work. The unvarying season (the absence of a seasonal rhythm) leads to a monotony, a plainsong whose obsessive rhythm creates a new economy of the expressive forms. To aim for spectacular moments, or twists in the narrative, for "brainwaves," is perhaps for our writers to perpetrate at the technical level an unconscious and unjustified submissiveness to literary traditions alien to their own. Technical vigilance is here not a question of splitting hairs.’
114 ‘I remember (here in this land with the surging sea aIl around) the shadows cut into the night, disincarnate and wraithlike forms, the broken blossoms that have always haunted the canvases of Zanartu. Perhaps a future continuously postponed; but a despair unceasingly defied. That is what the present state of this America rekindles in our hearts.’
124 ‘speech was forbidden, slaves camouflaged the word under the provocative intensity of the scream’
139 ‘What is the Caribbean in fact? A multiple series of relationships. We all feel it, we express it in aIl kinds of hidden or twisted ways, or we fiercely deny it. But we sense that this sea exists within us with its weight of now revealed islands. The Caribbean Sea is not an American lake. It is the estuary of the Americas. In this context, insularity takes on another meaning. Ordinarily, insularity is treated as a form of isolation, a neurotic reaction to place. However, in the Caribbean each island embodies openness. The dialectic between inside and outside is reflected in the relationship of land and sea. It is only those who are tied to the European continent who see insularity as confining. A Caribbean imagination liberates us from being smothered.’
145 ‘my landscape changes in me; it is probably that it changes with me [...] And the language of my landscape is primarily that of the forest, which unceasingly bursts with life. I do not practice the economy of the meadow, I do not share the serenity of the spring.’
160 ‘But a scream is an act of excessiveness. Our land is excessive. I know, since I can in a few steps take it all in but can never exhaust it.’
162 ‘Time, which needs to be undated.’
169 ‘Is there anywhere else in the world where such human waste takes place and that the world has no time to notice? Not great catastrophes that are like monumental phenomena in the history of the world, but the shadowy accretions of misfortune, the unseen erosion of a cornered people, the unnoticed disappearance, the slow loss of identity, the suffering without consequence? If we posit that the issue of this collective and silent death must be removed from the economic dimension, if we argue that it can only be dealt with on the political level, it also seems that poetics, the implicit or explicit manipulation of self-expression, is at the same time the only weapon that memory has against this human waste and the only place to shed light on it, both in terms of an awareness of our place in the world and our reflection on the necessary and disalienated relationship with the Other. To declare one's own identity is to write the world into existence.’
244 ‘We do not dare admit that we like hurricanes. They bring us so much. The periodic shudder originating out there in the sea, the announcement that follows that we're an official "disaster area." Earthquakes terrify us. First of all, we have no warning: it is neither annual nor decennial. Then, it is too brief to be under- stood. Also, it sometimes causes too much damage. Mimesis operates like an earthquake. There is something in us that struggles against it, and we remain bewildered by it.’
245 ‘This discourse on discourse, situated at the confluence of oral and written, has attempted to adapt the form of one to the subject matter of the other. It was expressed in me as a melody and picked up again as plainsong, has been slowed down like a great drum, and sometimes has been fluent with the high-pitched intensity of small sticks on a little drum.’
September 9, 2019
Reading this book reminded me that some essayists really stand above the crowd. Imagine reading this stuff in local magazines. A truly gifted writer.
May 17, 2025
“It is said that in certain points of Northern Québec, as no doubt in the steppes of Russia, you lose a sense of direction and have no sense of moving forward. I am curious about how the imagination functions there. Just like the child who would wish: ‘I would like to boil like water just to see how it feels’; I say to myself: ‘I would like just once to feel myself part of such an unrelieved vastness, to experience what rhythm of life it imposes.’” (pg 173)
While this book might seem more daunting than Glissant’s more famous works like Poetics of Relation and Poetic Intention, I think it could actually be a really fine introduction into his opus, as it discusses at length, that which we all share: language. Coming at this as an inheritor of an English-based Creole tradition, I don’t know if I’ve read any other works, including others by Glissant, that have made me feel more comfortable in my skin (or should I say mouth). I feel very grateful to have found this book.
While this book might seem more daunting than Glissant’s more famous works like Poetics of Relation and Poetic Intention, I think it could actually be a really fine introduction into his opus, as it discusses at length, that which we all share: language. Coming at this as an inheritor of an English-based Creole tradition, I don’t know if I’ve read any other works, including others by Glissant, that have made me feel more comfortable in my skin (or should I say mouth). I feel very grateful to have found this book.
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August 29, 2024 My Favorite Short Quotes
As far as I am concerned, that my landscape changes in me, it is probable that it changes with me.
…history and literature first come together in the realm of myth, but the first as a premonition of the past, and the second as memory of the future. Both obscure yet functional.
A self-confident people has the ability to transform into a mythical victory what may have been a real defeat; One can go so far as to argue that the defeats of heroes are necessary to the solidarity of communities.
It is because social and political reality in Martinique is camouflaged in all kinds of ways — by imitation and depersonalization, by imposed ideologies, by creature comforts
As far as I am concerned, that my landscape changes in me, it is probable that it changes with me.
…history and literature first come together in the realm of myth, but the first as a premonition of the past, and the second as memory of the future. Both obscure yet functional.
A self-confident people has the ability to transform into a mythical victory what may have been a real defeat; One can go so far as to argue that the defeats of heroes are necessary to the solidarity of communities.
It is because social and political reality in Martinique is camouflaged in all kinds of ways — by imitation and depersonalization, by imposed ideologies, by creature comforts
June 12, 2025
J'ai enfin terminé ce livre — quelle misère ! La prose, avec son ton familier et franc, de Glissant m'a captivée ; j'ai hâte de lire encore plus de ses écrits (mais, malheuresement, je dois me limiter à ceux qui concerne Faulkner pour le moment).
April 1, 2023
This is easily, by far, the most accessible and fascinating piece of academic writing I've engaged with. I'm thankful I read this for my thesis and it will definitely impact my personal writing.
November 7, 2023
As someone who's visited several countries in the Caribbean, but for whom its complicated history, diverse culture (beyond the consumerist and folkloric stereotypes of Caribbean culture that are neatly packaged and offered to tourists) has always been a mystery, this book was not only educational, but also revelatory.
Glissant writes of the formation of the Caribbean and how its twisted, and frankly, tortured genesis affects Caribbean peoples today - from the complete and devastating extermination of the native Caribs, to the repopulation of the islands based exclusively on the transplantation of African - and then later Indian - slaves who found (and still find) themselves dispossessed in both time and space from ancestral ties to their cultural hinterland, to the slaves' subsequent lack of recorded history (what Glissant calls "nonhistory") due to the absence of a collective memory of their own (i.e. the lack of documentation of the struggle of slavery that colonization ensured bore no witnesses), to a state of restlessness and ineffectuality as a result of the absence of productivity post-slavery or any productive industry to replace the Caribbean plantation system... Interestingly, Glissant discusses the fascinating consequences of liberation and the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean in a way I had never encountered before. Abolition for most countries in the Caribbean, apart (notably) from Haiti, was not something that was fought for, but rather was granted by the colonizers as a result of pressure in the home countries. As such, rather than abolition being a product of community effort and collective activism, which would offer a deeper and more unifying sense of identity, independence, and freedom, abolition paradoxically reinforced the disillusionment of African Caribbeans as it contributed to a pervasive and general sense of helplessness and passiveness among the majority of former slaves in the Caribbean. This has since seeped into the attitude and culture in the Caribbean.
Glissant breaks down the trap of folklore in Caribbean art, the false prize of 'citizenship,' the pernicious, racist forces of assimilation in French- and Anglo-Caribbean countries (an assimilation made even more ludicrous by the fact that it is pressure to assimilate to an approximation/simulation of English and French culture), the crushing weight of French and English linguistic dominance and the nonfunctional nature of Creole, and finally the current state of cultural self-obscurity, oblivion, isolation, and stagnation that Caribbean peoples find themselves in. Finally, Glissant outlines the importance of transcending the divisiveness of colonization, of the need for art to forge a social and political culture that is true to the reality of the Caribbean, something which has never been done before. He says, "I believe in the future of small countries," and after finishing, I hope the future he envisions for the Caribbean is possible, too.
Glissant's essays were sobering, informative, and though dense at times and somewhat difficultly paced (from an organizational tempo standpoint), beautifully written.
Glissant writes of the formation of the Caribbean and how its twisted, and frankly, tortured genesis affects Caribbean peoples today - from the complete and devastating extermination of the native Caribs, to the repopulation of the islands based exclusively on the transplantation of African - and then later Indian - slaves who found (and still find) themselves dispossessed in both time and space from ancestral ties to their cultural hinterland, to the slaves' subsequent lack of recorded history (what Glissant calls "nonhistory") due to the absence of a collective memory of their own (i.e. the lack of documentation of the struggle of slavery that colonization ensured bore no witnesses), to a state of restlessness and ineffectuality as a result of the absence of productivity post-slavery or any productive industry to replace the Caribbean plantation system... Interestingly, Glissant discusses the fascinating consequences of liberation and the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean in a way I had never encountered before. Abolition for most countries in the Caribbean, apart (notably) from Haiti, was not something that was fought for, but rather was granted by the colonizers as a result of pressure in the home countries. As such, rather than abolition being a product of community effort and collective activism, which would offer a deeper and more unifying sense of identity, independence, and freedom, abolition paradoxically reinforced the disillusionment of African Caribbeans as it contributed to a pervasive and general sense of helplessness and passiveness among the majority of former slaves in the Caribbean. This has since seeped into the attitude and culture in the Caribbean.
Glissant breaks down the trap of folklore in Caribbean art, the false prize of 'citizenship,' the pernicious, racist forces of assimilation in French- and Anglo-Caribbean countries (an assimilation made even more ludicrous by the fact that it is pressure to assimilate to an approximation/simulation of English and French culture), the crushing weight of French and English linguistic dominance and the nonfunctional nature of Creole, and finally the current state of cultural self-obscurity, oblivion, isolation, and stagnation that Caribbean peoples find themselves in. Finally, Glissant outlines the importance of transcending the divisiveness of colonization, of the need for art to forge a social and political culture that is true to the reality of the Caribbean, something which has never been done before. He says, "I believe in the future of small countries," and after finishing, I hope the future he envisions for the Caribbean is possible, too.
Glissant's essays were sobering, informative, and though dense at times and somewhat difficultly paced (from an organizational tempo standpoint), beautifully written.
May 6, 2016
Thinking the Caribbean (as well as other spaces of Francophone diaspora, even including Quebec) just wouldn't be the same without Glissant's powerful, nuanced, immensely thoughtful theory and criticism.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews