More than a million-and-a-half Africans, along with many Indians and South Asians, were brought to the Caribbean between the 15th and 19th centuries. Today, their descendants are active in literature and the arts, producing literature with strong and direct ties to traditional African expressions. This literary connection, combined with the tales of survival, exile, resistance, endurance, and emigration to other parts of the Americas, makes for a body of work that is essential for the study of the Caribbean and the Black Diaspora.

In Caribbean Literature, students and scholars can find, view, and analyze the interplay of language and culture, for an understanding of the struggle between indigenous and European languages. For the first part of the 20th century Caribbean writers defined themselves and their culture in the languages of their colonizers. But after independence, with a new self-determination and pride of origin, authors increasingly used local styles and vocabularies.