intellectuals of the twentieth century, expressed his postcolonial and
socialist philosophies in fiction, speeches, essays, and book-length
scholarly discourses. However, the majority of academic attention given to
James keeps the diverse mediums of James's writing separate, focuses on his
work as a political theorist, and subordinates his role as a fiction
writer.
This book, however, seeks to change such an approach to studying James.
Defining creolization as a process by which European, African, Amerindian,
Asian, and American cultures are amalgamated to form new hybrid identities
and cultures, Nicole King uses this process as a means to understanding
James's work and life. She argues that, throughout his career, whether
writing a short story or a political history, James articulated his attempt
to produce revolutionary, radical discourses with a consistent
methodology.
James, a Trinidad-born scholar who migrated to England and then to the
United States and who described himself both as a black radical and a
Victorian intellectual, serves as a definitive model of creolization.
King argues that James's writings also fit the model of creolization, for
each is influenced by diverse types of discourses. James rarely wrote from
within the confines of a single discipline, instead choosing to make the
layers of history, literature, philosophy, and political theory coalesce in
order to make his point. As his West Indian and Western European influences
converge in his work and life, he creates texts that are difficult to
confine to a specific category or discipline. No matter which writerly
medium he uses, James was preoccupied with how to represent the individual
personality and at the same time represent the community.
The C. L. R. James that emerges from King's study is a man made more
compelling and more human because of his complicated, multilayered, and
sometimes contradictory allegiances.
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