Erna Brodber and Velma Pollard
Erna Brodber and Velma Pollard
Folklore and Culture in Jamaica
Erna Brodber and Velma Pollard, two sister-writers born and raised in Jamaica, re-create imagined and lived homelands in their literature by commemorating the history, culture, and religion of the Caribbean. Velma Pollard was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica. By the time she was three, her parents had moved to Woodside, St. Mary, in northeast Jamaica, where her sister, Erna, was born. Even though they both travel widely and often, the sisters both still live in Jamaica.
The sisters write about their homeland as a series of memories and stories in their many works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They center on their home village of Woodside in St. Mary Parish, Jamaica, occasionally moving the settings of their fiction and poetry to other regions of Jamaica and various Caribbean islands, as well as other parts of the diaspora in the United States, Canada, and England. The role of women in the patriarchal society of Jamaica and much of the Caribbean is also a subject of the sisters’ writing. Growing up in what Brodber calls the kumbla, the protective but restrictive environment of many women in the Anglo-Caribbean, is an important theme in their fiction. In her fiction, Pollard discusses the gender gaps in employment and the demands of marriage and the special contributions of women to family and community.
Many scholars have also explored the significance of spirit in Brodber’s work, including the topics of “spirit theft,” “spirit possession,” and spirits existing through time, from Africa to the present. Brodber’s narratives also show communication between the living and the dead, from Jane and Louisa (1980) to Nothing’s Mat (2014). Yet, few scholars have examined Brodber’s work on par with her sister’s writing. Drawing upon interviews with the authors, this is the first book to give Brodber and Pollard their due and study the sisters’ important contributions.
This is a valuable contribution to Caribbean studies.
Readers desiring to learn more about the fiction and poetry of the talented Jamaican sisters Erna Brodber and Velma Pollard will welcome this comprehensive study. . . . Violet Harrington Bryan’s slim volume packs a wealth of information about the familial, historical, diasporic, religious, and folkloric contexts to literary works steeped in the language and culture of Woodside, St. Mary, the rural village Brodber still calls home.
. . . I was enthusiastic at its appearance and delighted at the void it fills. As soon as I read it, I sent off scores of enthusiastic letters to my professional friends, encouraging them to read it and to be sure their universities obtained copies. I remain hopeful that Bryan will update and expand the study or that other scholars will build upon this foundation.
Placing the lesser-known Velma Pollard in conversation with Erna Brodber, Violet Harrington Bryan illustrates how local and presumably provincial environments (such as Woodside, Jamaica) are the sites of rich creativity and postcolonial politics. The first comparison of Brodber and Pollard, this book is a key contribution to scholarship on post-independence Jamaican literature.
Violet Harrington Bryan is professor emerita of English at Xavier University of Louisiana. She is author of The Myth of New Orleans in Literature: Dialogues of Race and Gender, and her work has appeared in such journals as American Scholar, College Language Association Journal, and Louisiana Literature.
