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Caryl Phillips

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The topics of culture, race, identity and nationality have touched the conscience of many literary writers, especially black writers. Caryl Phillips is one of those black writers who had to grapple with such issues among white tribes of Europe. The present paper explores the themes of racism, identity, black subjectivity, non-belongingness and migration as described by Caryl Phillips in his travelogue The European Tribe. It is a book of essays that records Phillips’s experiences of a nine month trip through Europe.
Phillips’s journey is an attempt to solve the question of what it means to be an exile and minority in Europe. He assumes the position of a skeptic outsider who is not seeking sights or museums. In this way the motif behind Phillips’s …show more content…

Paul's, a village on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, in West Indies in 1958. At the age of twelve weeks, Phillips left the Caribbean in the arms of his mother and grew up in Leeds, England and later in Birmingham, in white working-class neighborhoods. As a first generation migrant Phillips talks about the experiences related to displacement in many of his works. Human displacement associated with the experiences of black Diaspora in both England and America is dominant theme of his writings. One of the largest diasporas of the past as well as of the present is African Diaspora. It began during the period of Atlantic Slave Trade. It led to the uprooting and resettlement of large number of African people from their home. The darkest chapter of African Diasporic history is related to the exploitation of blacks. The historical freedom movements and civil rights movements brought equal rights for the black community. But in spite of the equal law, black migrants encountered racial problems prevailing in the white dominated society. Secondly problems occurred because they had settled at a place that varied in culture, tradition, language and other factors from their homeland. So it became difficult for them to assimilate in the new culture. They remained confused between two different cultures. On the one hand they tried to adjust in their new settlement and on the other hand they felt a craving for their roots. This rootlessness can be seen in the writings of present generation of black British writers. As a son of immigrants, Phillips also encountered many identity problems. Diasporic identity has critically influenced his life and writing. His writings show a strong sense of nostalgia for his homeland. During the beginning of his writing career Phillips completely ignored the term ‘home’ as the very notion of home was ironical in his context. Phillips’s situation is very well explored by the definition of home given by Krystian

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