Tulane University

Supriya Nair, Professor of English at Tulane University, has been awarded the Carribean Philosophical Association’s Nicolás Guillén Award for Outstanding Book in Philosophical Literature for her 2013 publication, Pathologies of Paradise: Caribbean Detours. Past recipients of this prestigious award include Wilson Harris, Ramabai Espinet, Edwidge Danticat, Gabriel García Márquez, Junot Díaz, The Mighty Chalkdust / Hollis Liverpool, Prafulla Kar, Gordon Rohlehr, and Ana Lydia Vega.

Speaking to the scope and importance of Pathologies of Paradise: Caribbean Detours, the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Awards Committee recognizes Nair’s book as a “rich and compelling analysis of Anglophone Caribbean literature from multidisciplinary, multi-genre and multi-theoretical perspectives that include postcolonial literary theory, psychoanalysis, cultural studies theory, and transnational Caribbean feminist theory.” Following in the path of past recipients and “true to the ethos of the Guillén Award for Philosophical Literature,” the Awards Committee highlights Pathologies of Paradise: Caribbean Detours as a critical contribution that, “broadens and problematizes the scope of Caribbean philosophy through its intersectional approach that subverts colonial and national binaries of the Caribbean as tropical paradise or ‘infernal stereotype.’”

On the award and her book, Nair says, “Since my book began with conference papers delivered at the Caribbean Philosophical Association, I am particularly gratified by this award, which recognizes the interdisciplinary potential of the book and the philosophical contributions of literature. It is rather overwhelming to be listed on the same page as the lifetime achievement award winners who are such great writers of fiction, but I am thrilled that the individual book award acknowledges the merits of literary criticism and scholarship on the Caribbean. The Caribbean has long figured in metropolitan depictions as simply a tourist haven or as a space of disaster. My book interrogates such binaries and emphasizes the rich cultural significance of the Caribbean as a gateway to the Americas. New Orleans is sometimes figured as the northern rim of the Caribbean. I hope readers of the book will see the literary and cultural connections that bind both regions together.”

The Caribbean Philosophical Association will confer their 2014 awards at a special session of the 11th international conference held on June 19 to June 21, 2014 in St. Louis, Missouri. The other 2014 awards recipients include Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Leonard Harris, Abdul JanMohamed, John Drabinski, and Frieda Ekotto.

For more information on awards and award recipients, please read the original press release.

For more information on Professor Supriya Nair’s book, click here.