Essay
“A Cloak That Looks like Help”: US Intervention and the Neoliberal Turn in Kerry Young’s Pao
Abstract
In this article, I analyze how Kerry Young’s novel Pao negotiates the Jamaican political economy from the inception of Jamaica’s political parties, through the Manley period in the 1970s, and into the neoliberal era. I focus, in particular, on how the novel aligns with Manley’s claims of CIA involvement in destabilizing his government, and on the ascendancy of US-backed neoliberal hegemony that followed Manley’s defeat. I argue that we can read the protagonist’s character, riven between anti-imperialist ideals and capitalist ambitions, as a critique of Jamaican political economy and the waning of emancipatory politics since the neoliberal turn.
How to Cite:
Wilson, K A. ““A Cloak That Looks like Help”: US Intervention and the Neoliberal Turn in Kerry Young’s Pao”. Anthurium, vol. 12, no. 1, 2015, p. 6. DOI: http://doi.org/10.33596/anth.281
Published on
11 May 2015.
Peer Reviewed
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