CONTENTS

abbreviations page viii
preface xi
acknowledgements xxii

introduction Singular or specific? 1

1 Postcolonial theory 20
I Postcolonial singularity 22
II Postcolonial specifications 35
III The Marxist counter-attack 41
IV Towards a concept of the specific 48
V Edward Said, between territory and de-territorialisation 51
Excursus I A postcolonial world? 62

2 Edouard Glissant: from nation to Relation 66
I The critical consensus 70
II Original and outcome: Glissant's totalité 71
III National redundance, dialectical dépassement 76
IV Against folklore, against Creole 79
V La Lézarde (1958): the promise of national consciousness 81
VI Malemort (1975): the dialectic en panne 87
VII La Case du commandeur (1981): despair and transition 91
VIII Mahagony (1987), Tout-monde (1993): beyond national consciousness 100
IX Beyond specificity: Poétique de la Relation (1990) and after 118
Excursus II On the nation and its alternatives 126

3 Charles Johnson and the transcendence of place 133
I Critical contexts 137
II Johnson and the Good Thing 143
III Phenomenological implications 148
IV Allmuseri immanence 151 V Becoming-impersonal 155
VI Writing on the plane of immanence 168
VII The costs of singularisation 171
Excursus III The universal and the transcendental 176

4 Mohammed Dib and the 'alam al-mithal: between the singular and the specific 188
I Models of development 190
II Territory deferred 194
III Toward the limits of the specific 206
IV Ta'wil, Ishraq and the 'alam al-mithâl 215
V Towardsextinction 223
VI And then? 235
Excursus IV Return to the specific 247

5 Severo Sarduy: sunyata and beyond 254
I Territorial beginnings 265
II Gestos (1963): toward paralysis of the 'sensory-motor schema' 266
III Organisation by frame 270
IV Sarduy's neo-baroque 274
V De donde son los cantantes (1967): at the limits of lo cubano 276
VI Empty foundations 281
VII The Buddhist path 284
VIII Cobra (1972) 290
IX Maitreya (1978) 295
X Sarduy's singular univocity 298
XI Colibri (1984) and the renewal of situation 306
XII Cocuyo (1990) and disarientatian 312
XIII From death to dying 318 XIV Pájaros de la playa (1993) 322

conclusion 329
notes 336
bibliography 394
index 426