Gapper Book Prize: awarded to the best monograph in French Studies UK and Ireland by Society for French Studies: Fictions of Whiteness. Imagining the Planter Caste in the French Caribbean Novel (Virginia UP) (value: £2000)

Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)

Description

Citation from judging panel:

Fictions of Whiteness focuses on the literary construction of whiteness and white culture in the French Antilles through the figure of the béké, the white plantation master. Within this frame of enquiry, McCusker deftly navigates and analyses the critical issue of race and its relationship to gender, biological affiliations and the preservation of white culture. The temporal scope of the study moves from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century and across different genres of writing. This results in a longitudinal range that makes for an impressively sustained and informed work, the first of its kind to undertake an in-depth study of the béké. The arguments are always persuasive and make a highly authoritative case for the way in which such an analysis can transform our understanding of whiteness within the French Antilles. It is a remarkable work of scholarship and McCusker accomplishes her study with wonderful critical sophistication and sensitivity throughout. The writing style engages the reader — it has wit and the eloquence on display is of an unusually economical kind: it is never showy or remotely fussy, but marvellously controlled, compelling and rich. And perhaps most importantly, to have entered the well-established terrain of postcolonial studies and emerged with something entirely new is an immense achievement deserving of recognition across the field of francophone postcolonial studies and postcolonial studies more widely. We are delighted that this outstanding, original book is the R. Gapper Prize winner for 2022.
Degree of recognitionInternational
Granting OrganisationsSociety for French Studies

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