Literary theory has undergone unprecedented developments

in this century, probably because of the increased

exchanges between literature and other fields of knowledge,

in particular linguistics, psychoanalysis, sociology, philosophy

and Marxism. Yet this radical change has also had

important consequences on the way in which writers

included self-reflexivity in their creation. Though

originally brought to the forefront by Western thinkers,

theory naturally appealed to many post-colonial writers

perhaps because it naturally leads to the questioning of

colonialist biases. Still the conditions in which these writers

grew up predisposed many of them to being more acutely

aware of relativism than their Western counterparts. Such

poets as the Caribbean Derek Walcott shunned any approach

aiming at the logical re-appropriation of discourse. Yet metafictional

preoccupations never prevented reflection on the

meaning of history or on the social relevance of the

artist's practice.

This volume includes an essay by Wilson Harris, a writer

who, like Edouard Glissant, does not respect the traditional

division between criticism and fiction or poetry. His work

deliberately fuses theory and practice as though the two

were indistinguishable. His approach suggests the necessity

to question simplistic distinctions between genres and shows

that, far from belonging to a secondary `regionalist' category

of world art, post-colonial artists address fundamentally

revolutionary issues.