(A)lective Affiliations: Family and Interracial Friendships in Michelle Cliff's Abeng

Abstract

This article analyses the novel Abeng by Jamaican-American author Michelle Cliff by considering the representation of the development of Clare Savage, the protagonist. This development involves the difficult task of building a subjective position that allows her to break with her original white world and identify with Jamaican subaltern groups. The interracial friendship between Clare and Zoe plays a key role in this development, and establishes an intertextual dialogue with Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.