The following books form the second, and last (at least for now), installment of books featuring the lives of Trinbagonian expatriates abroad. It seems that our Canadian cousins have been extremely busy documenting the lives of Trinbagonians as all of the books featured here are by Trinbagonians living in Canada. To view the first selection of books on this subject, visit the Books of the Month Archive page.
As usual, I've decided to include a book suitable for a younger audience. In this case, the book is Harriet's
Daughter. This is a delightful book about the friendship between two girls. Margaret is a Canadian of West Indian heritage and Zulma
is a newly-arrived immigrant from Tobago. The story revolves around Margaret (whose hero is Harriet Tubman) and Zulma devising a way to return
Zulma to her grandmother in Tobago. The two girls embark on a series of adventures, unbeknownst to their parents, in an effort to mimic the life of
Harriet Tubman.
Born in Tobago, Margaret Nourbese Philip is a poet, writer and lawyer who lives in Toronto, Canada. She has published numerous books of poetry including: Thorns, Salmon Courage, She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks (for which she received the prestigious Casa de las Americas prize) and Looking For Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Macdowell Fellow, and was short listed for three awards for her children's novel Harriet's Daughter.
From K.H. Katrak - Choice
A promising first novel. . . . Philip, born in Tobago, sets her novel in Canada, thereby evoking the complicated
tensions of race, class, and gender experienced by her Caribbean characters. . . . The language of the novel is a vivid
intermingling of standard English and dialect. The novel successfully challenges stereotypical notions of both
strong, matriarchal black mothers and ofpoor, abused, powerless black women. Overall, the work is a valuable
contribution to Caribbean and postcolonial literatures, and will be useful to undergraduate and graduate students
and scholars.
From Roger Sutton - Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Characterfully narrated by Margaret, this story of a strong friendship between two black Caribbean girls in Toronto
confidently carries a feminist theme. . . . {Margaret} is in the Holden Caulfield mode of adolescent run-on narrators,
but the author skillfully allows enough space between Margaret and readers for them to appreciate her foibles as well
as her strengths. The portrayalof a community of brave black women is both funny and intense, admiring and
admirable. While the men in the story are drawn with less subtlety (one's a brute, the other pig-headed) and the book
deserves better copy-editing, this is an engaging effort from a small press.
Well, I have to say that it's great to see books about homosexual relationships among people of Trinidadian descent. There is no room for homophobia anywhere, let alone in the small countries that make up our beloved Caribbean. In Another Place, Not Here tells the story of Verlia and Elizete. Verlia is a Canadian of West Indian heritage who returns to her native island to help organize a revolution among poor sugar-cane workers. Elizete, a cane cutter and victim of her common-law-husband's abuse, comes to admire and learn from Verlia's strengths. The two fall in love, but Verlia's commitments in Canada forces her to return without Elizete. The second half of the book deals with Elizete's journey to Toronto to find Verlia.
From Publisher's Weekly
Two worlds collide in this intense, sensuous first novel from a filmmaker, poet and essayist who was born in Trinidad
and now lives in Canada. Both of the worlds are familiar to Caribbean-Americans: the verdant lushness of the islands,
and the large but claustrophobic North American cities that beckon and ultimately disillusion the immigrants who try
to make new homes in them. The narrator of the first part of the novel, Elizete, ekes out a miserable existence as a
sugarcane cutter on the island of Trinidad. Little has changed for these laborers since the harsh days of sugar
plantations. When Verlia, a cosmopolitan Marxist, returns to the island to organize the field hands and spread the
word of her Black Power Movement, she captivates Elizete's imaginationand her heart. As the two women become
lovers, Elizete's passion for the natural world complements Verlia's vocation as an activist. Verlia narrates the second
part of the novel, which chronicles the painful years she endured as an immigrant in Toronto. Brand's faithfulness to
island dialect sometimes distracts from the sensuous descriptions and simple politics of her tale. But she evokes the
privations of island life and captures the loneliness and constant fear of deportation that define the islanders'
immigrant experience; the assimilation of blacks into white culture and the consequent fear of losing their core
identities; the camaraderie among the socialist "sisters and brothers." In her hands, the melding of Elizete's dreams
and Verlia's fierce pragmatism achieve a powerful resonance.
Set in the 1950s and '60s, this picaresque novel chronicles the childhood-or perhaps the loss of childhood-of Thomas MacMillan, a Canadian with ties to Trinidad, who pieces together, from memory and from related stories, the early years of his life. Raised in a small town near the U.S. border of Canada, Thomas is abandoned by his mother to the care of an eccentric grandmother. When he reaches the age of ten, his mother, Katarina, reclaims him and takes him to Ottawa, where they live in the Victorian home of Mr. Henry Wing, a magus-like figure whose love of science and the imagination becomes an important legacy for Thomas. But is he Thomas's father? This brilliantly crafted debut novel is a story about love, memory, and the potency of the past.
From Kirkus
A splendid debut by Canadian writer Alexis (Trinidadian-born): a wistful remembrance of growing up, posing as a
love letter to the narrator's paramour. Thomas Macmillan begins by thinking about love, his longing for the recipient
of this ``letter,'' and about affection itself, as witnessed in his parents Henry and Katarina, both recently dead. His
daily itinerary consists of reading, writing, and thinking of the intended, and in the monotony of this routine, he
recalls his childhood, far from idyllic yet told with such grace that the simplicity of it becomes a charm. Deserted by
his mother (and biological father, always unknown to him), young Thomas goes to live with his cantankerous
grandmother, an ex-school marm with a penchant for dandelion wine. The two share an uneasy alliance in a small
Canadian city, living in a mutual agreement to stay out of each other's way. Thomas_s early years in the mid-'60s are
filled with nature, comic books, and first loves_among them next-door neighbor Mrs. Schwartz, a childhood friend of
his enigmatic mother_s. It is through Mrs. Schwartz that Thomas begins to know Katarina, indeed all through his life
she is only real to him through the reflection of others. When at ten his grandmother dies, and Katarina comes to
retrieve him, a new, wondrous chapter in his childhood begins when the two go to Ottawa and the house of Henry
Wing. An eccentric, charming man, Henry woos Katarina with poetry and Thomas with alchemy. Becoming a
surrogate father, he introduces him to the world of the mind, and to the world of love through his untiring example of
devotion for the reckless Katarina. Even when Katarina finds her own apartment, and takes other, usually abusive
lovers, Henry remains loyal to her, and to Thomas, who remains in his library-like home. Filled with anecdotal
footnotes, simple lists, and snippets of poetry, these inserted structures serve to bring form to the most vaporous
subject: the nature of love. A genuinely elegant work.
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