Exploring History and Culture in Nalo Hopkinson’s Short Stories Anonymous College

In Gayatri Spivak article, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” she argues that there is danger in academics attempts to write about a people without actually letting the people speak for themselves. She says that this doesn’t give a voice or power to the people that a particular issue may concern. This way the subaltern cannot speak but instead are being spoken for (Spivak). This is an important concept to keep in mind when talking about Caribbean authors writing themselves into history. The Caribbean people, because of colonization and the multiple colonizer governments one island could have fallen under in its history, have had to learn to slowly carve out their own identity in literature. While trying to do this they also have to balance the multiple identities they inhabit. Caribbean authors have used their work to both discover more about their history and flesh out their own cultural identity. They have also used their work to explore the past and the complicate the legacy that colonization has left in its wake. It is apparent in most works by Caribbean authors that the effects of colonization still echo strongly in the experience of Caribbean people today.

Nalo Hopkinson is no exception to these ideas. Nalo Hopkinson was born in...