Island Bodies, Second Edition: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination

By Rosamond S. King

A landmark study of sexuality and gender in Caribbean literature and popular culture, updated with a new preface from the author and reflections from contemporary scholars

Caribbean Studies Association Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Award

In Island Bodies, Rosamond King analyzes the sexual norms and gender expectations portrayed in Caribbean and diaspora literature, music, film, and popular culture to show how many individuals contest these traditional roles. Unique in its breadth and its multilingual and multidisciplinary approach, Island Bodies examines portrayals of trans people, queer desire, women's sexual agency, and interracial relationships in Anglophone, Hispanophone Francophone, and Dutch artworks.

This groundbreaking, award-winning book is updated in this second edition with a new preface by the author and new chapter prefaces written by experts who reflect on the influence of the book since its first publication. Island Bodies continues to show that despite the varied national specificity, differing colonial legacies, and linguistic diversity across the Caribbean, there are striking similarities in the ways Caribglobal cultures attempt to restrict sexuality and in the ways individuals explore and transgress those boundaries.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813081742
• ISBN13: 9780813081748
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Length: 320 Pages