Ramabai Espinet, The Swinging Bridge

Caryn Rae Adams (La Trobe University)

Ed. by Abigail Ward, University of Nottingham
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.1: Anglophone Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ronald Cummings (McMaster University), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège), Melanie Otto (Trinity College Dublin), Jak Peake (University of Essex), Abigail Ward (University of Nottingham)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2003

Places

Trinidad & Tobago (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Swinging Bridge (2003), the first novel by contemporary Indo-Caribbean writer Ramabai Espinet, foregrounds the importance of healing the wounds of trauma and reconciling with the ancestral past. Espinet examines two major types of trauma in this work: firstly, gender and culture-specific trauma, in which she highlights the devastating effects of male antagonism towards female sexuality and, secondly, the trauma of displacement, a recurring theme in the literature from the region. Espinet also challenges what she calls the “phenomenon of invisibility” by creating female characters who challenge the stereotypical Indian woman in the Caribbean concealed behind her traditional head dress, in constant seclusion and …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2012 words

Citation: Adams, Caryn Rae. "The Swinging Bridge". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 January 2017 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35723, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Save this article