The Dragon Can't Dance

The Dragon Can't Dance
Lovelace, Earl
London : A. Deutsch, 1979
240 p. ; 21 cm

Trinidad is Earl Lovelace's consistent subject. Dragon Can't Dance focuses on that ritual that is quintessentially Trinidadian, carnival, and the transformative magic it performs on the lives of all Trinidadians, but especially those who are most marginalized. Set in the slums of Port of Spain, the characters of this novel represent the poor from both populations that comprise, almost in equal numbers, modern Trinidad: African and South Asian. The tensions within and between these two groups are dramatically, and often comically, represented in the novel. These are complex and ever present tensions that derive not only from cultural and racial differences, but also from historical issues such as primacy, stemming from the historic order in which these populations were forcibly brought to the island, and their often diverse development. Although the African populations were brought to the island through the slave trade, which ended in 1807, and the South Asian population was brought as indentured labor in 1838, when the black slaves were fully emancipated, to replace slave labor in the then largely plantation economy, the South Asian population, by the 20th century, much surpassed the black at least economically. This is a subject Lovelace often deals with in his novels, treating the fierce rivalries between the two groups with irony and compassionate laughter. The question of history arises here both in the depiction of these two groups in this novel and the ritual stability carnival can bring at least momentarily. In this respect, the novel also picks up on the sense of exile that marks Caribbean writing in general, since all populations in the region came from elsewhere. The uniqueness of the Caribbean in the postcolonial world derives much from this aspect, that almost no indigenous population exists, and consequently is the subject of study as an example of both the African and the Asian diasporas. But if the Caribbean is a place of exiles, it became, in the latter half of the twentieth century, a place from which people went into exile, usually to Britain. The causes of this recent Caribbean diaspora - economic and social instability as a result of colonial underdevelopment - is clearly represented in this novel.

H.D. Carberry Collection of Caribbean Studies
University of Illinois at Chicago Library
Daley Library - Special Collections/3rd floor (non-circ.)
PR9272.9.L6 D72 1979

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