Literature of the Netherlands Antilles

Papiamentu is the native language of the populations of Curaçao, Bonaire, and Aruba, while Dutch is the overall language for justice, administration, and education. This language division plays an important role. Papiamentu is an exploratory laboratory for linguistic research on Creole languages. Its oral literature is full of regional traditions, such as the Anancy stories, also found in other Caribbean countries and performed with music and dance. The artist and writer Ellis Juliana is especially relevant in this respect. He even writes haikus in Papiamentu, giving expression to the unlimited possibilities of its poetical potential. He also worked as a collector of the oral history heritage.

Literature in Curaçao began to be written in Spanish around 1900. Neither black experience nor Papiamentu culture were central to this literature. By the time that Cola Debrot published his short novel Mijn zuster de negerin (My Sister the Negro) in 1935 in Dutch, this prejudice had come under attack. Debrot claimed that the African-American population belonged to the same Dutch-speaking family. But only when literature in Papiamentu became a real issue did the relationship with the cultural background of slavery and Africa start to be addressed explicitly. Frank Martinus Arion wrote a classical novel on this theme, Doubleplay: The History of an Amazing World Record (1998). The book contains an important reference to 1795, when Tula and Carpata led an armed revolt against slavery. They had contacts with the French islands and the Papiamentu speakers in Coro, the coastal city of Venezuela, where a similar revolt was undertaken in that same year.

Latin America, however, is no role model for the black experience in the Netherlands Antilles. Pierre Lauffer makes it clear in Patria (1944), one of the first published poetry volumes in Papiamentu, that Curaçao was his homeland. In 1957 Frank Martinus Arion introduced Négritude into Dutch-Antillean literature. His epic poem Stemmen uit Afrika (1957) echoes black voices in the forest, through which white tourists are passing. Although Arion writes in Dutch, he has other work published in Papiamentu. He also cofounded the first primary school in Papiamentu, the Kolegio Erasmo, in 1987, with a strong program on African-American heritage. In addition, Arion is an outspoken defender of Papiamentu's Portuguese origins, thus documenting intimate connections with Lusophone Africa.

The coexistence of Papiamentu with Dutch literature became reality after May 30, 1969, the historical date of the radical workers' protests. They accused the authorities of having discriminated against the cultural heritage of the islanders. Writers immediately took up this point. When writing in Dutch, like Arion, they emphasize the exquisite African-American details of the Papiamentu culture. And when writing in Papiamentu, authors display its rich variety for the creation of different images and word combinations. This is the subject in the novel De langste maand (1994) by Diana Lebacs. She views the island's culture through the eyes of a white Dutch camera team and elaborates the subsequent chain of misunderstandings.

Whereas Bonaire joins Curaçao in emphasizing the African-American heritage, Aruban authors are not particularly eager to consider this tradition. The relationship is more explicitly dealt with in St. Maarten, where the House of Nehesi regularly publishes works about black issues. The people of St. Maarten speak English, and this explains why the Nehesi editing house seeks to forge more connections with the English-speaking countries in the Caribbean than with their counterparts in the Leeward Islands. The Barbados-born Kamau Brathwaite and George Lamming are some of the authors in their publication program. The most outstanding writer and personality is the poet, journalist, and editor Lasana M. Sekou. He constantly deals with politics and migration and defines his own literary work as the search for liberation. Some of his publications are Born Here (1986), Love Songs Make You Cry (1989), and Quimbé—Poetics of Sound (1991).

See also Brathwaite, Edward Kamau; Caribbean/North American Writers (Contemporary); Creole Languages of the Americas; Lamming, George; Literature of Suriname

Bibliography

Arion, Frank Martinus. Double Play: The History of an Amazing World Record. 1973. Translated from Dutch by Paul Vincent. London: Faber and Faber, 1998.

Arnold, A. James, ed. History of Literature in the Caribbean. Vol. 2: English- and Dutch-Speaking Regions. Edited by Vera M. Kutzinski and Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger. Philadelphia, Pa.: Benjamins, 2001.

Debrot, Cola. Literature of the Netherlands Antilles. Willemstad, Netherlands Antilles: Departement van Cultuur en Opvoeding van de Nederlandse Antillen, 1964.

Neck-Yoder, Hilda van, ed. Special Issue on Caribbean Literature from Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, and the Netherlands. Callaloo 21, no. 3 (1998).

Smith, Wycliffe. Windward Island Verse: A Survey of Poetry in the Dutch Windward Islands. St. Maarten: Offsetdrukkerij Montero, 1981.

ineke phaf-rheinberger (2005)