Trinidad Noir reveals the Caribbean island’s darkness and its appeal with an unexpected and gratifying result.
Features brand-new stories by Robert Antoni, Elizabeth Nunez, Lawrence Scott, Ramabai Espinet, Shani Mootoo, Kevin Baldeosingh, Vahni Capildeo, Willi Chen, Lisa Allen-Agostini, Keith Jardim, Reena Andrea Manickchand, Tiphanie Yanique, and more.
Trinidad Noir
Akashic Books
Copyright © 2008 Akashic Books
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-933354-55-2Contents
IntroductionPART I: COUNTRY..............................................................................................................19Lisa Allen-Agostini Pot Luck Sans Souci...................................................................................39Kevin Baldeosingh The Rape Couva..........................................................................................58Shani Mootoo The Funeral Party San Fernando...............................................................................82Reena Andrea Manickchand Dougla Caroni Swamp..............................................................................92Ramabai Espinet Nowarian Blues Santa Cruz.................................................................................110Willi Chen Betrayal Godineau..............................................................................................122Jaime Lee Loy Bury Your Mother Palmiste...................................................................................137Oonya Kempadoo Standing on Thin Skin MaracasPART II: TOWN................................................................................................................153Elisha Efua Bartels Woman Is Boss Diego Martin............................................................................171Lawrence Scott Prophet Maraval............................................................................................193Robert Antoni How to Make Photocopies in the Trinidad & Tobago National Archives Uptown Port-of-Spain.....................215Darby Maloney The Best Laid Plans San Juan................................................................................231Keith Jardim The Jaguar Emperor Valley Zoo................................................................................261Rian Marie Extavour Eric's Turn Tunapuna..................................................................................274Elizabeth Nunez Lucille St. James.........................................................................................283Vahni Capildeo Peacock Blue Fort George...................................................................................300Judith Theodore Dark Nights East Dry River................................................................................317Tiphanie Yanique Gita Pinky Manachandi Chaguaramas........................................................................342About the Contributors
Introduction
Paradoxes in Paradise
People think they know the Caribbean, the white-sandy-beaches-rum-and-Coca-Cola-smiling-natives-waving-palms Caribbean-you know the one. And sure, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has sun, sea, beaches, the whole tourist schtick. But this southernmost country in the Caribbean archipelago is filled with paradoxes. She isn't always the idyllic tropical dream. Far from it. Sometimes she's a nightmare.
In Trinidad Noir, you'll trail the country's criminals, her prostitutes, her officious bureaucrats, her police, her ordinary citizens. Expect to be intrigued. Expect to be entertained. But don't expect to understand Trinidad.
It's ironic that this volume is the first noir collection to come out of this country because, in a sense, Trinidad was founded on crime. Christopher Columbus's arrival in 1498 was the start of a criminal enterprise of epic proportions: it began with the theft of the island from its indigenous Carib people, then their genocide, followed by African slavery and the importation of indentured labor to man the obscenely lucrative cocoa, sugar, and coffee plantations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today, Trinidad's political climate of excess and corruption is buoyed by an economy bloated with oil and natural gas monies and by an element of society afloat in drugs and guns. There's fodder enough here for ten volumes of Trinidad Noir.
Trinidad's history is imprinted in the faces of her people: East Indian, Portuguese, and Chinese indentured laborers; descendents of African slaves; European colonials; and the Syrians and Lebanese who migrated here in the early twentieth century. Black, white, dougla, East Indian, Chinese, and Middle-Eastern Trinis-you'll meet them all in these pages.
The country's profound cultural diversity has produced a resilient people. Trinis are characteristically God-fearing, family-oriented, and generous, but despite their apparent insouciance they can also be unscrupulous and divisive. They are often deeply religious yet ridiculously carnal, living a Victorian double-life. By night they love the same neighbors whom they claim to hate by day. Tension among these groups, most notably between the predominant East Indian and African populations, makes for political minefields in almost every aspect of national life. Yet in their everyday lives Trinis coexist peacefully: they live side by side, they intermarry, they lime and fete together.
Each spring most Trinis throw propriety to the wind and strip down to soul essentials for Carnival. Carnival combines the pre-Lenten celebrations of the French planter class during slavery with African masking traditions to form what is arguably the greatest show on earth. Masquerading as characters inspired by fantasy, film, Vegas, nature, and whatever else catches the designers' fancies, hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets. Together they jump and wine-a sensual dance involving hip gyration-to calypso, soca, and pan, indigenous music created largely by the black working class.
This collection includes stories by some of today's most acclaimed Caribbean writers, and for such a small country, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has an impressive literary legacy. Among the endless traits that typify Trinis-depending upon whom you ask-is a graciousness which is humbling to encounter. We would like to thank our contributors for their immediate and enthusiastic responses to our requests for noir stories, an entirely new genre for some of them. In fictionalizing crime in the real crime setting of Trinidad, they have created a decidedly literary noir collection with their sometimes lyrical, sometimes humorous, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes shocking, but always inventive stories. Their quality characterizations, plots, and styles concurrently reveal the country's darkness and its appeal with an unexpected and gratifying result: the Trinidad that emerges makes Trinidad Noir as much a delightful crime romp as it is an expos of the seedy side of life.
Although Trinidad has big-city aspirations in her two main urban areas of Port-of-Spain, the capital, and San Fernando, there is still plenty of country life in her cane-farming central plains, her southern swamps, and her coastal fishing villages. Set in the various parts of the country, these stories reflect the island in all her contradictions. As you turn the pages, you will experience a nation like no other. See for yourself, but bear in mind: there's nothing a Trini won't do for you, and there's nothing a Trini won't do to you.
Lisa Allen-Agostini & Jeanne Mason Port-of-Spain, Trinidad May 2008
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