This book analyses the theme of community in seven French Caribbean novels in relation to the work of the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy. The islands’ complex history means that community is a central and problematic issue in their literature, and underlies a range of other questions such as political agency, individual and collective subjectivity, attitudes towards the past and the future, and even literary form itself. Britton examines Jacques Roumain’s Gouverneurs de la rosée, Edouard Glissant’s Le Quatrième Siècle, Simone Schwarz-Bart’s Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle, Vincent Placoly’s L’eau-de-mort guildive, Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco, Daniel Maximin’s L’Ile et une nuit and Maryse Condé’s Desirada.

A finely-crafted piece of writing that deserves a readership far beyond the relatively narrow community of French Caribbean scholars for whom one might assume it was intended ... At a time when francophone postcolonial studies appears to be seeking a second wind, this book by Professor Britton would seem to be offering an exemplary pathway out of the current impasse. This is a book that demonstrates how a serious engagement with theory from another discipline can enrich and re-vitalize the field of postcolonial literary study.

Source: French Studies, 64 (1)

Celia Britton's new book provides an approach that avoids the binary trap of identity and alterity. [...] A rich and diverse range of conceptions of community emerges from Britton's readings.

Source: Times Literary Supplement

Britton's book is a thoughtful and valuable contribution to discussions both of [French philosopher Jean-Luc] Nancy's work and about community in the French Caribbean; it will certainly become a touchstone for scholars in the field.

Source: Modern Language Review, 104.3