Yvette Christiansë's Oceanic Genealogies and the Colonial Archive: Castaways and Generations from Eastern Africa to the South Atlantic

Abstract

This article traces tropes of dispersal and continuity in Yvette Christiansë oeuvre as it performs a genealogical enquiry through oceanic spaces and in and out of the colonial archive. Revolving respectively around St Helena and the Cape, both the poetry collection Castaway and the novel Unconfessed feature characters displaced from the eastern African region through the slave trade, whereas Imprehendora presents “liberated Africans” in both the South Atlantic and Indian oceans. Reading across these works, this article focuses on Christiansë's representational practice of salvage and haunting and her acute enquiries into the implications of origins, slavery and freedom.

Keywords:

• Yvette Christiansë
• Castaway
• Unconfessed
• Imprehendora
• South Atlantic
• Indian Ocean
• genealogical enquiry
• slavery and freedom