History and Race in Caryl Phillips’s The Nature of Blood

This monograph examines Caryl Phillipss The Nature of Blood (1997),a novel exploring recurring expressions of exclusion and discrimination throughout history with particular focus on Jewish and African diasporas and the storytelling of its migrant characters. Particular attention is given to the analysis of characters revealing different facets of the Jewish question. Maria Festa also provides a historical excursus on the notion of race and considers another character alluding to Shakespeares Othello to expose the paradoxes of the relationship between subjugator and subjugated. The study makes the case that among the novels most remarkable achievements is Phillipss effort to redress the absence of the Other from our history, that by depicting experiences of displacement, and by confronting readers with seemingly disconnected narrative fragments, The Nature ofBloodis a reminder of the missing stories, the voicesmarginalised and often racializedthat Western history has consistently failed to include in its accounts of the past and arguably its present.