"This satanic sea": V.S.Naipaul, Jamaica Kincaid and the Caribbean Predicament

In this article, I explore the nexus between colonial history, tourism industry, and ecological violence through V.S. Naipaul’s The Middle Passage (1962) and Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place (1988), with special reference to the way the sea is constructed in both texts. In The Middle Passage, Naipaul describes the nascent tourism industry as a new form of colonialism, if not a new form of slavery. In A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid further investigates the damage that tourism can inflict on the fragile ecosystem of Caribbean islands. I argue that these two writers – well ahead of their time – unravel the intersection of colonial attitudes, encompassing their modern manifestation in irresponsible tourist exploitation, and what Angela Davis calls “systematic assaults on the environment, including its human expressions.”