Shani Mootoo

Set on a fictional Caribbean island in the town of Paradise, Cereus Blooms at Night unveils the mystery surrounding Mala Ramchandin and the tempestuous history of her family. At the heart of this bold and seductive novel is an alleged crime committed many years before the story opens. Mala is the reclusive old woman suspected of murder who is delivered to the Paradise Alms House after a judge finds her unfit to stand trial. When she arrives at her new home, frail and mute, she is placed in the tender care of Tyler, a vivacious male nurse, who becomes her unlikely confidante and the storyteller of Mala's extraordinary life.In luminous, sensual prose, internationally acclaimed writer Shani Mootoo combines diverse storytelling traditions to explore identity, gender, and violence in a celebration of our capacity to love.

A Novel

Cereus Blooms at Night

Some secrets never die... Priya and Alexandra have moved from the city to a picturesque countryside town. What Alex doesn't know is that in moving, Priya is running from her past--from a fraught relationship with an old friend, Prakash, who pursued her for many years, both online and off. Time has passed, however, and Priya, confident that her ties to Prakash have been successfully severed, decides it's once more safe to establish an online presence. In no time, Prakash discovers Priya online and contacts her. Impulsively, inexplicably, Priya invites him to visit her and Alex in the country, without ever having come clean with Alex about their relationship--or its tumultuous end. Prakash's sudden arrival at their home reveals cracks in Priya and Alex's relationship and brings into question Priya's true intentions. Seductive and tension-filled, Polar Vortex is a story of secrets, deceptions, and revenge. It asks readers: Are we ever free from our pasts? Do we deserve to be? Praise for Polar Vortex: "How to know the shifting pieces of ourselves, how to acknowledge contradictory desires, as we are pulled into the maelstrom of desire and memory? Shani Mootoo's intimate new novel suspends us in the vortex between acts of betrayal and acts of love. It is a powerfully unsettling work from a brilliant artist." --Madeleine Thien, Scotiabank Giller Prize winning author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing "The past isn't even past--and the present is tense with conflicting desires and untold stories. What brings clarity to this setting is Shani Mootoo's limpid prose, clean and bracing. Polar Vortex is an honest, but also moving, exploration of true intimacy." --Amitava Kumar, author of Immigrant, Montana

Polar Vortex

Jonathan was nine when his mother Sid vanished from his life and it was not until he was a promising writer when he finally reconnected with his beloved parent. But the woman he'd known as "Sid" had morphed into an elegant man named Sydney. In the decade following this discovery, Jonathan made regular pilgrimages from Toronto to visit Sydney, who now lived quietly 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.

Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab

Story of Mala an adventurer, protector, recluse and madwoman.

Valmiki"s daughter / Shani Mootoo.

And Other Stories

Out on Main Street

Giller Prize finalist Shani Mootoo offers a beautiful family saga about race, class, sexuality -- and the corrosive power of secrets.

Valmiki's Daughter

Two childhood friends--Harry, the half-caste son of a hard-working maid, and Rose, the daughter of his mother's employer--form a bond that drives them later in life to break free from the social manacles that have kept them apart, in a story of the dangers of love against all odds. By the author of Cereus Blooms at Night. Reprint.

He Drown She in the Sea

My mother was an Anglican My father was a priest Together they prayed real hard When spring came (and the Pitch Lake overflowed) They reaped the smoothest stones you've ever seen From internationally celebrated writer and visual artist Shani Mootoo comes Cane | Fire, an immersive and vivid collection that marks a long-awaited return to poetry. Akin to a poetic memoir, past and present are in conversation with each other throughout this evocative, sensual collection as the narrator moves from Ireland to San Fernando, and finally to Canada. The reinterpretations and translation of this journey and associated family history give the present meaning. Through these deeply personal poems, and Mootoo's own artwork, we begin to understand how a life can not only be shaped, but even reimagined.

Cane Fire

Award-winning author of Cereus Blooms at Night, Shani Mootoo writes with uncommon sensitivy and brash humour, exploring gender roles, family ties, and cultural diversity.

Out on Main Street & Other Stories

“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).

Robert Antoni

Lawrence Scott

Ramabai Espinet

Oonya Kempadoo

Elizabeth Nunez

Eighteen authors share dark mysteries set on the sunny Caribbean island in this anthology. Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book is compromised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the geographic area of the book. As reflected herein, the Caribbean provides no shelter from the delicious terror of noir fiction. 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. Praise for Trinidad Noir “The volumes in Akashic’s locale-based noir anthology series set outside North America (Dublin Noir, etc.) offer more variety than those set in different major U.S. cities, and this one is no exception. The editors’ brief but insightful introduction makes clear that the sun and sea tourist image of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is at odds with the country’s political climate of excess and corruption and an element of society afloat in drugs and guns . . . . The two standouts are Keith Jardim’s mystical “The Jaguar” and Lawrence Scott’s “Prophet,” in which a series of child disappearances in a small but corrupt community builds to an appropriately bleak ending.” —Publishers Weekly

Shani Mootoo

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