d’Orlando, Natacha <br/><br/>
Creole gardens, diasporas and witches: Readings into Caribbean ecofeminism 

 -  2021.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> An outdoor yet intimate space, enclosed and open at the same time, the garden is generally considered as the original place of life, of a possible rebirth in exile or as a deceptive refuge. In L’Autre qui danse by Suzanne Dracius (1989), Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo (1996), Morne Câpresse by Gisèle Pineau (2008) and My Garden (book) by Jamaica Kincaid, as well as in Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle by Simone Schwarz-Bart (1972), Moi, Tituba, sorcière… by Maryse Condé (1986) and, to a lesser extent, in Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson (1998), it symbolizes a key issue of ecofeminism: women’s liberation through a space and through an art connected with nature. In the garden, as well as in the forest, ecofeminism finds a model: the witch, a master of botanic knowledge, a protector of female practices and poetics of nature. This paper examines diasporic, Caribbean and feminine ecopoetics of the Creole garden, and questions the definition of an “ecofeminist” literary text and its horizon of expectation.