Cuban Anti-slavery Narrative through Postcolonial Eyes: Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's Sab

• Published in: Bulletin of Latin American research Vol. 27; no. 2; pp. 155 - 175
• Main Author: Williams, Claudette
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.04.2008; Blackwell Publishing; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: 19th century; Abolition of slavery; African Americans; Avellaneda, Gertrudis Gómez de; Bakhtin, Mikhail; Colonialism; Cuba; Cuban anti-slavery narrative; Cubans; Edward Said; Fanon, Frantz (1925-1961); Feminism; Fiction; Frantz Fanon; Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda; Gomez de Avellaneda, Gertrudis (1814-1873); Latin America; Latin American literature; Latin American studies; Literary criticism; Love; Meaning; Mikhail Bakhtin; Narratives; Nationalism; Nineteenth Century; Novelists; Novels; Political conditions; Politics; Postcolonial societies; Postcolonialism; Psychoanalysis; Race; Racism; Radicalism; Sab; Said, Edward; sexual/racial politics; Slavery; White people; Womens rights
• ISSN: 0261-3050; 1470-9856
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1470-9856.2008.00261.x

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's "Sab" (1841) has come to be regarded as an iconic work in the canon of nineteenth-century Cuban fiction, celebrated as much for its literary pedigree as for its radical combination of anti-slavery and feminist ideas. Yet it has been the subject of very divergent critical appraisals. This essay sets out to breathe new life into Avellaneda's novel by interpreting it through a postcolonial optic. Drawing on ideas from the scholarship of Edward Said and Frantz Fanon, as well as the ideas of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, these pages explore the implications of its nationalist, racial, sexual and feminist politics for "Sab's" anti-slavery meaning. This postcolonial reading provides a possible solution for the conflicts between its various interpretations.