Robinson’s Adventures in a Hybrid World

The story of Robinson Crusoe—one of the most powerful myths in modern culture—haunts the imagination of postcolonial writers. Drawing examples from Derek Walcott, Sam Selvon, J. M. Coetzee and Michel Tournier, this article explores the semantic complexity of the Robinson myth, not only as the narrative core of a modern mythography of colonialism and its tragic consequences, but also as a great laboratory for hybridization and satire. By re-writing, at times painfully, in other instances humorously, the story of Robinson and Friday, these authors speculate about the violence that underlies every form of cultural hegemony, the status of historical truth, the privilege of having a voice, but also the rich potentials of irony and satire available in any reversal or hybridization of well-established literary myths.