ABSTRACT
The challenge lies in the Caribbean. Given that Matura was born in Trinidad and moved to the UK as an adult this sentiment may seem unsurprising. Looking back to the Caribbean for inspiration might seem less relevant to second-generation Caribbean British playwrights. This chapter argues, however, that the Caribbean remains a space with which contemporary black British drama continues to engage. Scholars from the Francophone Caribbean have been instrumental in developing the concept of creolisation and what it means to be creole. The creole continuum highlights how language use is inflected by socio-economic discourse and contexts. The acrolect, with its historical proximity to the language of the colonial master and its contemporary status as an official language, affords it a higher prestige than the basilect, which is associated with lower/slave classes. Creolisation theory has also influenced arts practices. The tensions that arise from centripetal indigenous versus centrifugal transnational identifications find articulation in the concept of creolisation or creole continuum.
