Book excerpt: This collection of essays brings together performers, writers, critics and musicologists from the Dutch-, English-, French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean, as well as Britain and the US. It explores the history of music and writing from trans-Atlantic, intra-Caribbean and global perspectives. The contributors discuss exchanges between Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and native America, the places of music and dance in Caribbean culture in general, in the establishment of a literary aesthetic, in idividual authors and in specific island cultures.