Acknowledgements 4 Declaration 5

6 INTRODUCTION 7 o Towards a historiography of colonial psychiatry in the Caribbean 8 o Literature and madness 14 o Outline of the thesis 17 Chapter 1: Historical background 23 o A brief history of the lunatic asylum in Trinidad and British Guiana 23  Trinidad 24  British Guiana 29 o Robert Grieve: The Asylum Journal 1881 (-1886) 31  Humanitarian treatment of the insane 33  Insane bodies ... 34  ...insane minds 36  Occupational therapy 38  The inmates 40  Cannabis, Alcohol and Insanity 43  Insanity among East Indians 51 o The Royal Commission of Enquiry 54 o The Coolie, his Rights and Wrongs (1872) 56 o Lutchmee and Dilloo: the earliest novel of Indo-Guyanese life 58 Chapter 2: From history to stories 65 o Coolie imaginaries 66 o From past to present 69 o The Promise or After All We've Done For You (1995) 72 o The Counting House (1996) 81 Chapter 3: Oppression, repression and the madwoman 94 o Violence and Madness 95 o Harold Sonny Ladoo: the man/the writer 98  No Pain like this Body (1972) 101  “De woman drunk and de woman mad!” (Ladoo 79) 107 o Shiva Naipaul, The Chip-Chip Gatherers (1973) 114 Chapter 4: Women and Madness 123 o Historical overview 123  “Recasting Women” 128 o Indo-Caribbean women and writing 132 o The madness of Matikor 138 o Ramabai Espinet 142 o Mahadai Das 147 o Shani Mootoo 157 Chapter 5: The collapse of Lord Rama 168 o Taming the coolie shrew 169 o The madman... at last 174 o From mad scholar to mad professor: climbing the ladder of insanity. 178 Chapter 6: “It was a great depression verging on madness” 196 o Madness and writing 199 o Miguel Street 201  Man-man: the madman, the trickster and the preacher. 204 o A House for Mr Biswas (1961) 209 o The Enigma of Arrival 221 Conclusion 229 Bibliography 234