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Her views on Trinidad, the Caribbean and immigrant identity:
布蘭德自稱「逃離」家鄉的，因為當時在千里達她身為一個女孩很受限制 (所以她也是逃離femininity﹔ Silvera 361-63)。但對她而言，她既不住在「那裡」(千里達)，也不住在這裡(加拿大)，而是在兩者之中(Birbalsingh 1996: 122)。
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"Sans Souci"
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 "Blossom"
* Right: Oya from Santeria (image source) Blossom—an obiah woman; her obeah house and speakeasy on Vaughan Road
-- works for a doc on Blamoral: he eyeing she, eyeing she. …Blossom …making sure she ain't in no room alone with he. (33) the doctor's attempt, Blossom's strong reaction, picketing next day (33-34); -- do odd jobs, save money to do she own business
Pentecostal Church (聖召會、五旬節會、神召會) -- believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the speaking in tongues as evidence as clearly recorded in the Bible--Brief History |
"At the Lisbon Plate" -- Allusions
in this story
the narrator's revision of L'etranger, the ending |
InterviewsI think that Blossom's distrust of whites is not based on some personal craziness of hers. It's based on historical practice. It is based on historical events that place her as a black woman in the world at this point in time. …The whites in the story are not Blossom's only antagonists, though whites might read the story that way. Blossom’s also frees herself of an exploiting husband. What B hates is suffering and the suffering of black peoples. (Hutcheon 272)
Birbalsingh's interview 122Q: The older writers had very solid memories of home to fall back on, and they mined those memories in their writing. A: I wasn't as nostalgic, I think, as some of them might have been. I was new. Here I was being able to make connections with African-Americans. I saw great hope in that. I didn't long for home at all. I longed for a past, a kind of validation of my history, which I thought I could find in a past that was beyond my grandparents. …It was located somewhere in the consciousness of a people that had to do with slavery, that other exile. About "Blossom" and African tradition 132 That story is based on fact: I met this woman
running a basement speakeasy in her house, and she had run the speakeasy
for years and years. She was a Jamaican woman without a single tooth in
the front of her mouth, and she would throw people out who were drunk.
Also one day I saw an old man xeroxing something. I thought I'd read over
his shoulder and it was all these little potions he was preparing for people.
He was an obeah man and that was obeah gone modern tech. It's interesting
how our people could come here and adapt things that used to work for them
somewhere else so that they work for them here too.
Gender issue 133 Q: In your stories the women have a certain resilience. The men come and go, like Victor in 'Blossom", but the women go on apparently forever. Is that particularly Caribbean? Was it part of your family? … A: It's very much what I saw in my family, and what I saw in the other families on MacGillvray Street. … Q: I should think this [subject not being women] is true for West Indian writing in general. Is it not dominated by male writers? A: It's not just dominated by male writers but dominated by themselves as subject in it, despite the evidence of their own lives. |
| References:
Birbalsingh, Frank, ed. Frontiers of Caribbean Literature in English. London: Macmillan, 1996. Hutcheon, Linda, & Marion Richmond, eds. Other Solitudes: Canadian Multicultural Fictions. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1990. Silvera, Makeda. “An interview with Dionne Brand: In the company of my work.” The Other Woman: Women of Colour in Contemporary Canadian Literature. Ed. Makeda Silvera. Toronto: Black Women and Women of Colour P, 1995: 356-81. Related Sites
Dionne Brand Homepage from Canadian Poetry website Dionne Brand: a selected bibliography from Author Profile at Northwest Passages
Sisters in the Struggle -- intro at NFB Older Stronger Wiser-- intro at NFB |
在她的作品中，她(或她的角色)返鄉的經驗也是負面的，但責任不在加勒比海地區，而是在以美國為首的新殖民主義和資本主義。