Brathwaite!
“Much postcolonial literature seeks to assert the richness and validity of indigenous cultures in an effort to restore pride in practices and traditions that were systematically degraded under colonialism”.
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Having reading some of Kamau Brathwaite’s work is my first time in reading about the colonization in the modern era. What chiefly grapes my attention is the writer’s language. That is not a pure English, and not as the same time an independent language as it is driven from the colonization circumstances at that land.
After failing in understanding lots of words and ideas, I directly focused on the interview since I was certain it will reflects some of the writer’s ideas, philosophy, and background. As a result of being an American writer and having a Carrabin origins, Brathwait wanted to discuss his original home issues- one of which is the colonization and all of its concerning issues such as slavery, poverty, and losing identity- in a literary way. Regardless of respecting his usage of the “nation language” as he descried it, I am really wondering what if he used the standard English, so that it will be easier and perhaps more popular not only for English speakers, but secondary English speakers as well.
In addition, I am feeling there is in somehow a connection between the language font and the “Islam”! The font as I have read, reflects the Meadville Islamic manuscripts. I am not, frankly, pretty sure what this land popular religion; nevertheless, I am just wondering why did he choose this particular font. Is he a Muslim, Does he like the font style? Or is he just focusing on introducing or renew a non- familiar things?
Also, his tendency of repeating some words is really obvious in a number of his poems. Is there propose of doing so? Does his choice of a certain words reflect it’s significant even if some of them are pronouns? Or repetition is something related of being an oral performance?