Introduction: Embryonic Beginnings

Abstract

Palko offers a summary of the literary connections between Irish and Caribbean literatures. She develops a controlling metaphor of the placenta, drawing on the work of Luce Irigaray and Hélène Rouch. This conceptualization of the placenta as a “third space” opens up intriguing possibilities for developing a metaphorical understanding of the reciprocal nature of influence between Irish and Caribbean literatures. The placenta functions as a mediator between two intimately connected but ultimately individual beings who maintain autonomous integrity. The placenta privileges neither one nor the other, the survival and even thriving of each being its objective. This image works to concretize the echoings of maternal explorations between the two literatures and addresses the interpersonal relationships formed by and the gendered nature of the postcolonial experience.