Out There

June 1, 2002
In three essays based on lectures given at Harvard, Pinckney, author of the novel High Cotton, examines writers J.A. Rogers, Vincent O. Carter, and Caryl Phillips. Pinckney has succeeded in creating an engaging study of three black writers who could not be more different. Rogers, born in Jamaica, was a journalist involved with the Harlem Renaissance. Carter, born in Missouri, moved to Switzerland in the 1950s to write but published only one work, The Bern Book: A Record of the Voyage of a Mind. Phillips, who has written both fiction and nonfiction, immigrated during infancy from the Caribbean to postwar Britain. Despite the authors' diverse backgrounds, their writing shares a common theme of "an obsessive's solitary journey," and they all recount tales of "alienated consciousness." The essay about Carter is particularly remarkable, as one learns of his struggles to write and acclimate in a city where he is the only black man. As an Afro European, Phillips discovered his desire to write only after a trip to America. These essays leave the reader wanting to learn more. Alas, there is no bibliography, but the book is still highly recommended for all academic libraries and large public libraries. Erica Swenson Danowitz, American Univ. Lib., Washington, DC

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2002
Pinckney's work is based on a series of presentations at Harvard's Dubois Institute. He focuses on three black writers of varied backgrounds but with a common fixation that reveals their alienated consciousness: J. A. Rogers, Jamaican-born journalist popular in the 1930s and 1940s and noted for his work " Sex and Race"; Vincent O. Carter, who moved to Switzerland to write in the 1950s; and Caryl Phillips, of Caribbean heritage but raised in England, the most contemporary writer of the group. Rogers undercut the foundation of white supremacy by exposing the myth of a pure white race. Carter's only published work, " The Bern Book," involves his travels and stay in postwar Europe. He focuses on his personal attempt to assimilate in Europe while becoming alienated from Africa and Pan-Africanism. Phillips returned to his West Indian roots and developed a cultural consciousness that has an African American diaspora slant. Each author is unique in reflecting his own period while confronting Europe and its role in the African diaspora.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)