Africa's Daughters

Originating in and from the Afra-Caribbean enslaved woman, this genre’s maternal imaginary and matrilineage counters literary and historical discursive absence. This introductory section tracks the literary origins of an alternative maternal genealogy of the historical novel before turning to the two novels chosen as case studies: Dionne Brand’s At the Full and Change of the Moon (1999) and Andrea Levy’s The Long Song (2010). The neo-slavery novel suggests that social change in the present cannot be implemented if the maternal past remains unknown and/or told from the (M)aster’s perspective. Reclaiming the rebellious African mother reorients the daughter’s genealogy and challenges hegemonic patriarchal, colonial family arrangements such as those proposed by traditional psychoanalysis. Matria thus manifests as a desire to restore the broken link between enslaved mothers and daughters and to realize a maternal Caribbean matria that integrates the African past.