Literary Map of the Caribbean – Emily Evers

For a long time now, I have wanted to create an overview of key writers that I encounter during my studies. I will often recognize the name, but be unable to place the writer – where they are from, what their key writings are etc. The cultural map that I have created has been the kick-start for project, with Caribbean writers as my focus. I have selected writers from five islands (Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Martinique). Each scrapbook page is dedicated to either an island or a writer. The pages about an island provide an overview of its history. Information on the writers covers their biography and (a selection of) key writings. With this scrapbook, when I cannot place a writer, I can flip to the relevant page and quickly read up on them; for this reason I have kept the content to a minimum – the point is that I can read up on it quickly, to get a general idea of the context.

In some ways, the choice of islands was arbitrary, as there are many other islands that I could have chosen to do. However, I do not see this project as “done” as I intend to continue with it beyond this course, and so the other Caribbean islands will get their turn. I further intend to create more scrapbook pages of writers beyond the Caribbean, so that in the end, whenever I get stuck with any key writer, I have a visual contextualisation that I can place a writer in.

It is a pity that I could not present this in person, as it would have been nice for everyone to be able to flip through the scrapbook themselves. This way the different textures and details would be more visible. Each page took about an average of two hours to create (including research, designing the page and glueing). Things to pay attention to, then, is both the overview of information, as well as the scrapbooking details.

In some ways, the choice of islands was arbitrary, as there are many other islands that I could have chosen to do. However, I do not see this project as “done” as I intend to continue with it beyond this course, and so the other Caribbean islands will get their turn. I further intend to create more scrapbook pages of writers beyond the Caribbean, so that in the end, whenever I get stuck with any key writer, I have a visual contextualisation that I can place a writer in.

It is a pity that I could not present this in person, as it would have been nice for everyone to be able to flip through the scrapbook themselves. This way the different textures and details would be more visible. Each page took about an average of two hours to create (including research, designing the page and glueing). Things to pay attention to, then, is both the overview of information, as well as the scrapbooking details.