ABSTRACT
The 'Castle' of the title to George Lamming's In the Castle of my Skin represents the carapace within which 'G' develops his individuality. Twenty-seven years later, in Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home, Erna Brodber used the term 'kumbla' for the covering, both protective and isolating, within which Nellie grows to womanhood. Caribbean women shoulder the most tremendous burdens. The success of Crick Crack Monkey was followed by a surge of women's writing. In 1977 the Caribbean Artists Movement published a special issue of Savacou on 'Caribbean Woman', including both history and literature, and a short bibliography of West Indian women's writing. The Caribbean Association Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA) was founded in 1985, celebrated by the publication of Ramabai Espinet's major collection of Caribbean women's verse, Creation Fire. Radically different in approach, the work of Jamaica Kincaid, born in Antigua as Elaine Potter Richardson, also explores the psychic reintegration of a young Caribbean woman.
