Topographic Writing and Landscape Artelization in Chronicles of the Hostile Sun, by Dionne Brand

Abstract

Chronicles of the Hostile Sun (1984), poetry collection by Dionne Brand, Trinitarian author who has been living in Canada since 1970, evokes the Grenadian Revolution, which took place between 1979-1983 and the military occupation by the United States during the operation “Urgent Fury, in October 1983. In this paper we explore how Brand constructs what we named “topographic writing” to describe the process of artelization (Roger 2007) that every landscape entails, stressing the political struggles that this aestheticization hides. In her poetry, Brand makes explicit the work of her own “screen” (Foster 1988) when looking at the Caribbean, as well as the stereotyped and reductionist construction of those who only see the region as a source for consumption.