CYRIL DABYDEEN

“Cyril Dabydeen” is a monograph that looks at the writings of Cyril Dabydeen against the background of diasporic theory. The volume analyses the poetry, short stories and novels of this great Canadian writer who has been acknowledged as “one of the most confident and accomplished voices of the Caribbean Diaspora this side of the late 20th century” (Kamau Brathwaite). An attempt is made to explore the context of marginal writing in Canada and the efflorescence of thematic and stylistic nuances that emerge in such writing.

Dabydeen’s writings are not merely an escape into nostalgia to create a romantic vision but a journey undertaken to unravel the hitherto hidden recesses of the Caribbean and its peoples. Dabydeen’s poetry, as all imaginative writing are, is saturated with memories of his past and the re-shaping of Indo-Caribbean sensibility in Canada. His imagination embraces the angst of settlement in a new country, the nostalgia for the home country and the forlornness that characterise such an exile.

Jameela Begum explores the double heritage which is so richly reflected in Dabydeen’s work and highlights the writer’s ability to transcend the purely temporal and accost the mythical, historical and legendary world with a sense of good humour and gentleness.

Jameela Begum (b. 1952) is Director, Centre for Canadian Studies and Professor, Institute of English, University of Kerala. She is now the President of the Indian Association for Canadian Studies. A Shastri Indo-Canadian Fellow at York University, Toronto, she also gave a series of lectures on Canadian Literature there in 1990 and 1993. She has presented papers at various national and international conferences on Canadian Studies. She has published extensively in scholarly journals and has edited the volumes Commonwealth Literature: Themes and Techniques, Canadian Literature: Perspectives, South Asian Canadiana, Canadian Voices (anthology of poems) and Literary Theory: (Re)Reading Culture and Aesthetics.