Race, Privilege, and the Politics of (Re)Writing History: An Analysis of the Novels of Michelle Cliff

Belinda Edmondson

doi:10.2307/2931825

Race, Privilege, and the Politics of (Re)Writing History: An Analysis of the Novels of Michelle Cliff

Callaloo ◽

10.2307/2931825 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 180 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Belinda Edmondson

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff

Nationalism and the Development of Identity in Postcolonial Fiction: Zo� Wicomb and Michelle Cliff

Research in African Literatures ◽

10.2979/ral.2005.36.1.20 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 20-33

Author(s):

Constance S. Richards

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff ◽

Development Of Identity

Michelle Cliff (*1946)

Frauenliebe Männerliebe ◽

10.1007/978-3-476-03666-7_27 ◽

1997 ◽

pp. 119-123

Author(s):

Marlies Glaser

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff

Writing Under the Sign of Anne Frank: Creolized Holocaust Memory in Michelle Cliff and Caryl Phillips

MFS Modern Fiction Studies ◽

10.1353/mfs.2014.0051 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 60 (4) ◽

pp. 796-820 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sarah Phillips Casteel

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff ◽

Holocaust Memory ◽

Caryl Phillips ◽

Anne Frank

Michelle Cliff and the Paradox of Privilege

College English ◽

10.2307/378298 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 59 (8) ◽

pp. 898

Author(s):

Lindsay Pentolfe Aegerter

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff

Journey into Speech-A Writer between Two Worlds: An Interview with Michelle Cliff

African American Review ◽

10.2307/3041999 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 28 (2) ◽

pp. 273 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Opal Palmer Adisa

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff

An Interview with Michelle Cliff

Contemporary Literature ◽

10.2307/1208803 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 34 (4) ◽

pp. 595 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Meryl F. Schwartz ◽

Michelle Cliff

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff

Michelle Cliff and the Authority of Identity

The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association ◽

10.2307/1315243 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 56

Author(s):

Sally O'Driscoll

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff

Gendered Legacies of Romantic Nationalism in the Works of Michelle Cliff

Small Axe A Caribbean Journal of Criticism ◽

10.1215/-11-3-52 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 52-72 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

J. F. Stitt

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff

The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature ◽

10.4324/9780203830352.ch4 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Isabel Hoving

Keyword(s):

Michelle Cliff

Cultivating Correspondences; or, Other Gestures of Belonging

10.5406/illinois/9780252039478.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Stéphane Robolin

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Toni Morrison ◽

Alice Walker ◽

Michelle Cliff ◽

Letter Writing ◽

Exemplary Practices ◽

Transnational Engagement

Transnationalism is not the exclusive province of globe-trotting authors, but also includes the practices of those who could not access the means of transatlantic mobility. This chapter begins by considering Bessie Head's exilic life and her quest for belonging that motivated the grounded transnationalism she expressed. It then investigates one of its most exemplary practices: her letter writing, with particular attention to the set of letters between Head and her four African American correspondents: Nikki Giovanni, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Michelle Cliff. Some of their epistolary exchanges and writing published around the same period feature repeated references to gardens, whose political and imaginative implications are considered at length. The chapter concludes by framing the practice of letter writing as a form of cultivation that re-centers our attention on the labor that transnational engagement requires, even as it yields a whole spectrum of outcomes.