Dr Glenville Ash­by

Our Caribbean: A gath­er­ing of Les­bian and Gay writ­ing from An­tilles is an eclec­tic com­pendi­um of ab­stract po­et­ry, artis­tic tales and aca­d­e­m­ic com­men­taries on the state of the gay and les­bian com­mu­ni­ty in the Caribbean. Each sto­ry is telling, poignant. The writ­ers bang against walls that have im­pris­oned them-shut­ting them off from the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty.

The aca­d­e­m­ic depth of Wes­ley Chrichlow, in par­tic­u­lar, is near fault­less. In Chart­ing a Buller Man's Trinida­di­an Past, he chron­i­cles life as a young man nur­tured in an an­ti-gay cli­mate. He em­ploys the so­ci­o­log­i­cal the­o­ries of no­table lu­mi­nar­ies-W E B Dubois, Hen­ry Louis Gates and Mar­lon Rig­gs; and no­table gay writer Au­dre Lorde. In many ways Chrichlow's work forms the crux of this fas­ci­nat­ing and nov­el un­der­tak­ing, en­cap­su­lat­ing the writ­ers' re­sent­ments and frus­tra­tion in a world alien, even hos­tile. His work of­fers a dis­turb­ing snap­shot-a psy­cho­log­i­cal and so­ci­o­log­i­cal overview of life as a gay youth. It is a bi­na­ry ex­is­tence-one of near para­noia that the writer calls, "dou­ble con­scious­ness," or look­ing at one­self through the eyes of oth­ers.

Chrichlow's pain rings through. He ob­serves, if not re­viles the ef­fem­i­nate ho­mo­sex­u­al, the queer-the vil­lage clown who serves up gos­sip and comedic an­tics. He re­calls play­ing his cards right-to mask his sex­u­al­i­ty: "Dur­ing my teenage life, in an ef­fort to tem­porar­i­ly se­cure my mas­culin­i­ty...I par­tic­i­pat­ed in events such as steal­ing (sug­ar cane, co­coa, man­goes...) break­ing bot­tles with sling­shots or stones..., en­gag­ing in phys­i­cal fights, and hang­ing out on the block with the boys late at night." He even ca­vort­ed with women, if on­ly to probe in­to his sex­u­al­i­ty. Chrichlow, like so many of the writ­ers is up against a so­ci­ety that is en­trenched in ho­mo­pho­bia. It is pro­mul­gat­ed by the every in­sti­tu­tion and sanc­tioned by re­li­gious edicts. But les­bians and gays make up a sec­tor that should not be si­lenced. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, in post colo­nial so­ci­eties, iden­ti­ty crises have for­mu­lat­ed a cul­tur­al zeit­geist based on machis­mo, po­lit­i­cal strong­men and the viril­i­ty of the black man. While the Caribbean has sought, through rev­o­lu­tions, to com­bat racism, sex­ism and clas­sism, it has failed to dis­man­tle het­ero­sex­ist views. As Chrichlow ar­gues, the Black Pow­er move­ment-while ef­fect­ing pos­i­tive change on one hand-has served to re­in­force the stig­ma­ti­sa­tion of the ho­mo­sex­u­al. In rev­o­lu­tion­ary Cu­ba, as Ma­bel Cues­ta ar­tic­u­lates in Oth­er is­landers on Les­bos: A Ret­ro­spec­tive Look at His­to­ry of Les­bians in Cu­ba, gar­zon­is­mo (les­bian­ism) is a ghost­ly sub­ject, di­vorced or un­wel­come in any dis­course on women of the rev­o­lu­tion as the writ­ings of famed ac­tivist Mari­blan­ca Sabas Alo­ma sad­ly in­di­cate.

But Our Caribbean is not all laden with so­ci­o­log­i­cal find­ings. Tales of un­in­hib­it­ed li­bido race through its pages, cour­tesy of Pe­dro Je­sus. His The Por­trait, is a haunt­ing­ly provoca­tive ex­hib­it of raw sex that pours from the imag­i­na­tion of the pro­tag­o­nist on­to her can­vas, and in­to her bed. It is a sex­u­al con­ta­gion that de­stroys friend­ships and sad­ly plays in­to the stereo­typ­i­cal view of the pruri­ent, las­civ­i­ous ho­mo­sex­u­al. Ar­guably, it goes against the over­all the­mat­ic grain-but at the same time pro­vides the most cin­e­mato­graph­ic and lit­er­ary artis­tic un­der­tak­ing. Through­out, there is an acute sense of pes­simism and dis­trust of the so-called het­ero­sex­ist es­tab­lish­ment. Non gays and les­bians are scru­ti­nised, even sub­ject to re­verse "dis­crim­i­na­tion." This is best ex­em­pli­fied in Cues­ta's work that de­scribes male at­ten­tive­ness as sus­pi­cious. She writes of her ex­pe­ri­ence build­ing a small house with her part­ner: "Young men blos­somed from every cor­ner, hand­some, very strong.....ma­cho, prob­a­bly promis­cu­ous, prob­a­bly abusers too."

Maybe, they fan­ta­sised about girl on girl sex, she sur­mised. Ad­mit­ted­ly, her tone is far less crest­fall­en at the end.

Of course, the skit­tish, tim­o­rous at­ti­tude of some gay and les­bians is un­der­stand­able, but, as Al­do Alavarez proves in Prop­er­ty Val­ues, for every ven­omous ho­mo­phobe, there are many het­ero­sex­u­als will­ing to fight for so­cial equa­nim­i­ty-or all. Our Caribbean-al­though part­ly con­tex­tu­al, is an es­sen­tial re­source for lay and aca­d­e­m­ic com­mu­ni­ties. It is of­fers a panora­ma of rag­ing bio-psy­cho­log­i­cal forces, while con­jur­ing ques­tions on cre­ation and man's pro­cliv­i­ty to vi­o­late, in­jure, and even kill an­oth­er sole­ly be­cause of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion.

Our Caribbean:

A gath­er­ing of Les­bian and Gay Writ­ing From the An­tilles

• Edit­ed with an In­tro­duc­tion by Thomas Glave

• Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press

• Durham and Lon­don 2008

• Avail­able: Ama­zon.com

• Rat­ings: *** (rec­om­mend­ed)