Our warmest congratulations to our dear colleague at the University at Albany (SUNY) Glyne A. Griffith and to the Journal of West Indian Literature team for this special issue, edited by Norval “Nadi” Edwards and Antonia MacDonald — JWIL, Volume 34, Number 1, November 2025— on his work and contributions to Caribbean literary studies. [As with the book reviews, Nadi Edwards and Antonia MacDonald’s introduction to the issue is open access and is available here so you can peruse the rich terrain of the issue.]
Description: Announcing the publication of JWIL, volume 34, number 1, a Festschrift honouring Glyne A. Griffith, whose work remains foundational to contemporary Caribbean literary studies. Co-edited by Antonia MacDonald and Norval “Nadi” Edwards, the issue features Faith Smith meditating on Griffith and others’ attention to sound in Caribbean writing and criticism; Philip Nanton’s mapping of his own literary experiences with radio alongside Griffith’s analysis of the BBC’s literary radio programme Caribbean Voices; Aieka Yasheva Smith’s application of Griffith’s work to cultural exchanges between Japan and Jamaica; Tohru Nakamura’s use of Griffith’s critical analysis of Wilson Harris’s writing as a point of departure for his own theorizing of a poetics of corporeality; and Rae-ann Smith’s identification of a critical moment for Caribbean screenplay writing in the era of AI, akin to what Griffith explored as a key transformational moment in the mid-twentieth century for Anglophone Caribbean writing.
These essays stand alongside a short story by Kim Robinson-Walcott, two poems by Lehana Simon, and an afterword by Griffith himself. Through creative and scholarly contributions alike that reflect on the far-reaching influences of Griffith’s work, the volume sustains a central claim of Griffith’s own oeuvre: that Caribbean literature is a generative terrain where memory, invention, and survival coalesce to imagine resilient decolonial futures.
This issue recognizes not only Griffith’s scholarly influence but also his sustained institutional labour as mentor, as editor, and as a guiding voice in the unfolding conversations that continue to shape the field. The cover, designed by Ayrïd Chandler, presents a striking photographic collage of Griffith, a visual homage that mirrors the issue’s intellectual focus. Also included in the issue are book reviews of Robert de laChevotière’s Tall Is Her Body;Marcia Douglas’s The Jamaica Kollection of the Shante Dream Arkive: being dreamity, algoriddims, chants & riffs; AlejandroHeredia’s Loca: A Novel; NaloHopkinson’s Blackheart Man;Sharma Taylor’s What a Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You; Patricia McDonald’s Waves: An Anthology of Caribbean Literature; and Myriam J. A. Chauncey’s Harvesting Haiti: Reflections on Unnatural Disasters.
For more information, visit http://jwilonline.org.
Our warmest congratulations to our dear colleague at the University at Albany (SUNY) Glyne A. Griffith and to the Journal of West Indian Literature team for this special issue, edited by Norval “Nadi” Edwards and Antonia MacDonald — JWIL, Volume 34, Number 1, November 2025— on his work and contributions to Caribbean literary studies. [As
