This book analyses the theme of community in seven French Caribbean novels in relation to the work of the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy. The islands? complex history means that community is a central and problematic issue in their literature, and underlies a range of other questions such as political agency, individual and collective subjectivity, attitudes towards the past and the future, and even literary form itself. Britton examines Jacques Roumain?s Gouverneurs de la rose?e, Edouard Glissant?s Le Quatrie?me Sie?cle, Simone Schwarz-Bart?s Pluie et vent sur Te?lume?e Miracle, Vincent Placoly?s L?eau-de-mort guildive, Patrick Chamoiseau?s Texaco, Daniel Maximin?s L?Ile et une nuit and Maryse Conde??s Desirada.