The Arrivants

Containing Kamau Brathwaite’s first three poetry collections – Rights of Passage (1967), Masks (1968) and Islands (1969) – The Arrivants is the visionary book that transformed the direction of Caribbean literature for decades to come.

Exploring his homeland – its natural beauty, its violent history, and the technologies of survival that sustain its people – Brathwaite takes us on an odyssey of self-discovery as he wrestles with the complex cultural inheritance of the Caribbean and the existential quest for being in the African diaspora. Written during the era of global postcolonial independence movements, The Arrivants pioneered a distinctly Caribbean poetic expression, one that captured the rhythms of speech and everyday experiences of people on the islands and beyond.

Through the collisions of regional dialect, music, historical flashbacks and excursions throughout Africa and the Americas, Brathwaite restores an African subjectivity and spirituality to Caribbean life and bridges the psychic rupture of the middle passage. Rich, imaginative, bold, The Arrivants is a vigorous and unforgettable volume that charts the emergence of one of the most unique poets of the twentieth century.