Archipelago - Hardcover

Roffey, Monique

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1849838755 ISBN 13: 9781849838757

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2012

Synopsis

When a flood destroys Gavin Weald's home, tearing apart his family and his way of life, he doesn't know how to continue. A year later, he returns to his rebuilt home and tries to start again, but when the new rainy season arrives, so do his daughter's nightmares about the torrents, and life there becomes unbearable. So father and daughter - and their dog - embark upon a voyage to make peace with the waters. Their journey will take them far from their Caribbean island home, into other unknown harbours and eventually across a massive ocean. They will sail through archipelagos, encounter the grandeur of the sea, meet with the challenges and surprises of the natural world. A miraculous future lies ahead of them, unknown territories await to be discovered. But it will take more than an ocean to put the memory of the flood behind them...

About this title

About the Author

Monique Roffey is an award winning Trinidadian-born British writer. She has written four novels and a memoir. Three of her novels are set in the Caribbean and form a loose trilogy which engages with political and environmental issues in the region. The most recent of these Caribbean novels is House of Ashes, published in July 2014. Set on the fictional Caribbean island of Sans Amen, it tells the story of three characters, a gunman, a hostage and a boy soldier caught up in a botched coup d'état. Archipelago, published in 2012, is both an epic sea voyage and an examination of climate change from the point of view of a man from the southern Caribbean. It won the OCM BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature in 2013. The judges commended it for its 'exploration of the greater Caribbean space in which is embedded a real-life story of trauma and loss and ultimately redemption that is both contemporary and compelling'. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, a story that maps the creolisation of a colonial couple during the early Independence years in Trinidad, received widespread critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2010 and the Encore prize 2011. Her erotic memoir, With the Kisses of his Mouth was published in 2011 to much praise and controversy and was reviewed in the Guardian as 'a subversive work that transcends the author's personal story: it stands alone in the chasm that has opened between feminist literature and the belles du jour brigade'. Roffey has a PhD in Creative Writing and teaches regularly for The Arvon Foundation and the Writer's Lab in Skyros. She is a member of the action group Carib-Lit and teaches and runs workshops regularly in Trinidad too. She divides her time equally between London and Port of Spain. Find out more at http://www.moniqueroffey.co.uk

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1849838755
• ISBN 13: 9781849838757
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368