In Market Aesthetics: The Purchase of the Past in Caribbean Diasporic Fiction, Elena Machado Sáez explores the popularity of Caribbean diasporic writing within an interdisciplinary, comparative, and pan-ethnic framework. She contests established readings of authors such as Junot Díaz, Julia Alvarez, Edwidge Danticat, and Robert Antoni while showcasing the work of emerging writers such as David Chariandy, Marlon James, and Monique Roffey. By reading these writers as part of a transnational literary trend rather than within isolated national ethnic traditions, the author is able to show how this fiction adopts market aesthetics to engage the mixed blessings of multiculturalism and globalization via the themes of gender and sexuality.
“Through careful attention to reviews, press coverage, blogs, interviews, and other paratextual sources, Machado Sáez offers a nuanced account of the literary marketplace and the readerly desires that have shaped the authors’ self-conscious crafting of their historical fictions. The breadth of the author’s scope is impressive, as the book touches on the diasporic experiences of Caribbean expatriate writers in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.”