The Island: Martinique. (Nonfiction).(Book Review)(Brief Article)

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN. National Geographic, $20 (208p) ISBN 0-7922-6533-5

Given "the opportunity to go anywhere in the world and write about it," the distinguished and prolific novelist, autobiographer, story writer and essayist Wideman chose to spend three winter weeks on Martinique. He offers this prose poem, at times lyrical, at times streetwise, as "the record of a visit," Personal diary merges with mediations provoked by the shadow of slavery and the consequent Creolization in the New World. Wideman explores, as a stream-of-consciousness novelist or a jazz musician might, writing, clothing, language, hair, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare's The Tempest and the guided …