Ethnographic engagement and autobiographical practice in Austin Clarke's culinary memoir Pigtails'n breadfruit

Abstract

Austin Clarke's culinary memoir Pigtails'n Breadfruit challenges the comfortable interpretive frame that genres provide. In positing ‘life writing’ as an adequate evaluative frame for this work, a term which draws on the reevaluation of autobiographical practice carried out in ethnic minority and feminist quarters, I argue that ethnographic discourse exerts great pressure on Clarke's ‘personal’ narrative. His focus constantly shifts away from himself into his community and wider cultural and historical issues. This paper is also concerned with the identity and language politics of the text.

Key words:

• autobiography
• life writing
• slavery
• food
• creolization