Woodside

Velma Pollard and Erna Brodber, two sisters -writers born and raised in Jamaica, recreate imagined and lived homelands in their literature by commemorating the history, culture, and religion of the Caribbean. Even though they both travel widely and often, the sisters both still live in Jamaica: Pollard in Kingston, and Brodber in Woodside, Si. Mary’s Parish, a rural village in northeast Jamaica. They write about their homeland, a series of memories and stories of that lived and imagined experience in their many works: fictional, nonfictional, and poetic. Many have explored the significance of spirit in Brodber’s work, including the topics of “spirit theft” and “spirit possession,” also spirits existing through time, from Africa to the present. Yet, few scholars have examined Brodber’s work on par with her sister’s writing. This study is the first to do so, drawing upon original interviews. The village of Woodside provided a lens into the history of slavery and resistance, as well as the religions and folklore of the Caribbean, by which people of the diaspora struggled to achieve their independence.