LAUSR

explore how peripheries are produced and sustained, rather than reifying them in the way that world-systems theory tends to do – as numerous critics have shown, there is more to relationships between such spaces than a stifling core–periphery divide. Beyond this framing of the project, Niblett is centrally concerned with how the lived experience of those on the “commodity frontier” – those spaces where commodities are extracted – are reflected in literature, and produces some elegant readings that intertwine politics, socio-economics, and various aesthetic responses. At certain points the literature becomes subjugated to the larger narrative and its concerns with commodities and global economic unevenness – and with that last word, Niblett shows how closely aligned he is with the Warwick Research Collective. This balance is of course a fine line to tread for any scholar, and when it goes well, Niblett convincingly demonstrates how literary works respond to their moment of production. Particularly noteworthy is the corpus Niblett engages with, which consists of what he calls “peripheral” writers. Whether the Brazilian Jorge Amado, the British politician and writer Ellen Wilkinson, or the Trinidadian novelist Ralph de Boissière, Niblett eloquently argues for attending to their work to understand how commodity production impacts both communities and individual people’s lives. As his book demonstrates, imperialist domination has affected not only economic structures, but also literary form’s capacity to represent the lives of those who remain invisible or subjugated.