The 'Aesthetics of Personalism' in Caryl Phillips's Writing: Complexity as a New Brand of Humanism

This paper attempts to underline the epistemological implications of Phillips's handling of diasporic history through a focus on individual lives in Cambridge (1991) and The Nature of Blood (1997). His confessional first-person narratives highlight the intricacies inherent in human nature, thereby resisting the globalizing discourse of liberal humanism. Even more importantly, his fictions seem to illustrate a new, more understanding approach to this often hackneyed term, for they give voice to individuals whose multiple differences are, paradoxically, part proof of a common humanity, viewed here as an inclusive rather than exclusive concept.