"This book is a haunting multi-generational novel about the shifting faces of Mala - adventurer and protector, recluse and madwoman. The plot contains sexual violence and mature themes" -- Prové de l'editor.

“A classic Romeo and Juliet love story” spanning decades from the World War II Caribbean to modern-day Vancouver (The Washington Post Book World). At the dawn of the Second World War on the island of Guanagaspar, Harry, the son of a widowed maid, and Rose, the daughter of his mother’s well-to-do employer, are inseparable as children. Blissfully unaware, they form a connection that knows nothing of race or class hierarchies defining their society. Then one night, after American troops occupy Guanagaspar, their deep friendship is exposed and severed. When Harry and Rose meet again in Canada years later, the gulf separating them is not so apparent. As a passion long repressed is rekindled, Rose takes it upon herself to reroute their destinies. A “transcendent tale of souls wounded by circumstance and rehabilitated by love” (Booklist, starred review), He Drown She in the Sea is a lyrical, sensuous, and suspenseful story about the origins of desire and the sacrifice and euphoria that come with defying the life one is born into. With a “narrative pacing verg[ing] on genius . . . The worlds revealed are lush and brilliant. The journey is delightful” (Edmonton Journal).

A novel reminiscent of the works of Herman Koch and Rachel Cusk, in which a lesbian couple attempts to escape the secrets of their pasts. “[Mootoo’s] unsettling latest examines how secrets always come back to haunt us—especially the ones we’ve managed to keep from ourselves.” —Globe & Mail, one of the 100 Favorite Books of 2020 One of Autostraddle‘s Best Queer Books of 2020 Polar Vortex is a seductive and tension-filled novel about Priya and Alex, a lesbian couple who left the big city to relocate to a bucolic countryside community. It seemed like a good way to leave their past behind and cement their newish, later-in-life relationship. But there’s leaving the past behind—and then there’s running away from awkward histories. Priya has a secret—a long-standing on-again, off-again relationship with a man, Prakash. In Priya’s mind Prakash is little more than an old friend, but in reality things are a bit complicated. Why has she never told Alex about him? Prakash has tracked Priya down in her new life, and before she realizes what she’s doing, she invites him to visit. Alex is not pleased, and soon the existing cracks in their relationship widen, revealing secrets Alex herself would have preferred to keep. Into the fissure walks Prakash, whose own agenda forces all three to face the inevitable consequences of their choices.

Een welvarende familie op Trinidad weet niet goed raad met seksualiteit.

LONGLISTED 2014 – Scotiabank Giller Prize From the author of Cereus Blooms at Night and Valmiki’s Daughter, both nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, comes a haunting and courageous new novel. Written in vibrant, supple prose that vividly conjures both the tropical landscape of Trinidad and the muted winter cityscape of Toronto, Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab is a passionate eulogy to a beloved parent, and a nuanced, moving tale about the struggle to embrace the complex realities of love and family ties. Jonathan Lewis-Adey was nine when his parents, who were raising him in a tree-lined Toronto neighbourhood, separated and his mother, Sid, vanished from his life. It was not until he was a grown man, and a promising writer with two books to his name, that Jonathan finally reconnected with his beloved parent—only to find, to his shock and dismay, that the woman he’d known as “Sid” had morphed into an elegant, courtly man named Sydney. In the decade following this discovery, Jonathan made regular pilgrimages from Toronto to visit Sydney, who now lived quietly in a well-appointed retreat in his native Trinidad. And on each visit, Jonathan struggled to overcome his confusion and anger at the choices Sydney had made, trying with increasing desperation to rediscover the parent he’d once adored inside this familiar stranger. As the novel opens, Jonathan has been summoned urgently to Trinidad where Sydney, now aged and dying, seems at last to offer him the gift he longs for: a winding story that moves forward sideways as it slowly peels away the layers of Sydney’s life. But soon it becomes clear that when and where the story will end is up to Jonathan, and it is he who must decide what to do with Sydney’s haunting legacy of love, loss, and acceptance.

Celebrated novelist Shani Mootoo, author of the award-winning Cereus Blooms at Night, turns her hand to poetry in a nuanced and lively exploration of desire, identity and personal exile. In haunting and astonishing language, shot through with the speech and rhythms of her native Trinidad, Mootoo walks a breathtaking tightrope-between cultures and identities, between geographical locations, between memory and desire. In a set of bittersweet love poems, she tenderly exposes the contradictions in loving another woman; in a series of exhilarating riffs on language and the effects of colonization, she marries English words to Trinidadian intonation. Here are poems equally lush and philosophical, sensual and startling, spilling forth meaning from experience like blood-red seeds from a pomegranate.