A New World Order : Selected Essays - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099428172 ISBN 13: 9780099428176

Publisher: Vintage

Synopsis

"A New World Order" ranges widely across the Atlantic World that Caryl Phillips has charted in his award winning novels and non-fiction. He argues that there is a new world order of cultural plurality, one which is being promoted by the increasingly central role of the migrant and the refugee in the modern world. He goes on to reflect on the work of such seminal figures as Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul, J.M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer, Steven Spielberg, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Marvin Gaye. Phillips writes about the moment when St. Kitts, the island of his birth, became independent and talks about the responsibility of being a writer born into a postcolonial world who lives on both sides of the Atlantic. He turns the spotlight on Britain, speculating about his parents migration in the late fifties, the continued legacy of racism, his own helpless loyalty to Leeds United, and his anxieties at feeling as though he is both of, and not of, Britain.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

The Africa of his ancestry, the Caribbean of his birth, the Britain of his upbringing, and the United States where he now lives are the focal points of award-winning writer Caryl Phillips' profound inquiry into evolving notions of home, identity, and belonging in an increasingly international society.
At once deeply reflective and coolly prescient, A New World Order" charts the psychological frontiers of our ever-changing world. Through personal and literary encounters, Phillips probes the meaning of cultural dislocation, measuring the distinguishing features of our identities-geographic, racial, national, religious-against the amalgamating effects of globalization. In the work of writers such as V. S. Naipaul, James Baldwin, and Zadie Smith, cultural figures such as Steven Spielberg, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Marvin Gaye, and in his own experiences, Phillips detects the erosion of cultural boundaries and amasses startling and poignant insights on whether there can be an answer anymore to the question "Where are you from?" The result is an illuminating-and powerfully relevant-account of identity from an exceedingly perceptive citizen of the world.

From the Back Cover:

“[Phillips] writes wonderfully crafted, deeply meditative treatises on the black experience in a global and historical sense. . . . [He is] intellectual and reflective but always interesting and informative.” –Quarterly Black Review

“One of the literary giants of our time.” –The New York Times

“Phillips takes us on a lucid transatlantic flight in search of what he–someone from the ‘African diasporan world’–might call home. . . . His insight sparkles in every line as he lays bare his cultural upbringing.” –The Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• ISBN 10: 0099428172
• ISBN 13: 9780099428176
• Binding: Paperback