Wao and Walcott: renewing history and identity in the postcolonial novel

In response to the continuous production of postcolonial literature that perpetuates the pain of the past, St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott advocates for a celebratory approach to writing, one that involves embracing a "historyless" and Edenic world in which writers are free to generate their own histories and identities. This thesis will explore the application of Walcott's ideals in Junot Diaz's novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007], in which a constant gesturing to the fictionality of the text exposes the constructed nature of history and mutability of identity in order to produce the possibility of new worlds powered by imagination.