Claude McKay, Banana Bottom

Janelle Rodriques (Auburn University)

Ed. by Melanie Otto, Trinity College Dublin, Ronald Cummings, McMaster University
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 1933

Places

Jamaica (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story Collection

Resources

Claude McKay lived and wrote though major movements of the twentieth century: the First World War and its aftermath; the Russian Revolution (and the subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union); the Great Depression (which effectively ruined his literary career); and the Second World War, which eventually gave way to political independence for Europe’s colonies – independence for which McKay agitated but did not see in his lifetime. Throughout these movements McKay was forever a traveller, forever a foreigner, never quite re/finding the Jamaican peasant home he left behind in 1912, nor the Harlem from which he exiled himself in 1922 and to which he reluctantly returned in 1934. Banana Bottom, his final novel …

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3594 words

Citation: Rodriques, Janelle. "Banana Bottom". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 August 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19571, accessed 26 April 2024.]

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