The Rites of Cricket and Caribbean Literature

Book excerpt: 'This is a wonderful idea for a book, and Claire Westall executes the project with skill. It is extraordinarily comprehensive, demonstrating the huge collective labour which has been poured into cricket in the Caribbean, working as a means to bring the Caribbean itself into the imagination. Using literature as her lens is inspired. It will act as a resource for the future a long while yet. Westall brings Caribbean cricket alive.' - Bill Schwarz, Professor of English, Queen Mary University of London, UK This book analyses cricket's place in Anglophone Caribbean literature. It examines works by canonical authors - Brathwaite, Lamming, Lovelace, Naipaul, Phillips and Selvon - and by understudied writers - including Agard, Fergus, John, Keens-Douglas, Khan and Markham. It tackles short stories, novels, poetry, drama and film from the Caribbean and its diaspora. Its literary readings are couched in the history of Caribbean cricket and studies by Hilary Beckles and Gordon Rohlehr. C.L.R James' foundational Beyond a Boundary provides its theoretical grounding. Literary depictions of iconic West Indies players - including Constantine, Headley, Worrell, Walcott, Sobers, Richards, and Lara - feature throughout. The discussion focuses on masculinity, heroism, father-son dynamics, physical performativity and aesthetic style. Attention is also paid to mother-daughter relations and female engagement with cricket, with examples from Anim-Addo, Breeze, Wynter and others. Cricket holds a prominent place in the history, culture, politics and popular imaginary of the Caribbean. This book demonstrates that it also holds a significant and complicated place in Anglophone Caribbean literature.