Erotohistoriography, Identity, and Queer Times and Spaces in Michelle Cliff’s Novels

This article presents a discussion on Michelle Cliff’s project to unveil the counterhistories of Jamaica, buried, left out, and underrepresented by the colonial project. In the case of Abeng (1984) and No Telephone to Heaven (1987), an intersection of postcolonial and queer theories facilitates a unique reading of these novels as vehicles in this project to focus on the experiences of the marginalized and disenfranchised. Erotohistoriography is introduced as a concept that helps debunk the linear discourse of Western modernity: pleasurable moments experienced by both normative and non-normative bodies become instrumental in these reconnections between the present and the past, thus enabling the creation of non-official mappings of space and time.