Speaking the Unspeakable - The Hyphenated in the Irish-Caribbean Dialogue

Speaking the unspeakable is to see how far the creative acts of cultural translation in the conflict between history and memory sharpen a natural native knack to converge in a polyphonic way. I pay special attention to the influence that the archetypal theme of speaking the unspeakable in the novel through the initiation experience of the subaltern develops and exerts in the context of increased intercultural awareness. This awareness of the cultural dilemma seems especially important because, in my observation, there is as much alienation and chaos among individuals in the daily contexts of speech communication as among heroes in the imagined communities of literary texts. The hyphenated Irish-Caribbean dialogue of this article aims to bridge cultures in the literary thought of the many writers. Padraic O Conaire and George Lamming, in the two works of Exile (E) and The Pleasures of Exile (PE), respectively, are given as examples of the dialogic interlocution.