Swinging Bridge

Mona a film researcher rooted in Montreal vividly remembers that night in Trinidad when her father Da-Da in a drunken rage threatened to kill her nine-year-old brother Kello. Years later a terminally ill Kello asks Mona to revisit their native island and reclaim the property that their family had left behind. As Mona returns to the Caribbean to confront her family''s turbulent past the reader travels back in timeto nineteenth-century India to British Trinidad where her ancestors lived as indentured workers in the cane fields and finally to urban North America.Steeped in the lyrical rhythms of Caribbean life this exquisite richly layered novel explores the immigrant experience with compassion and humour. It is a moving story of race and displacement of love and betrayal of endings and beginningsa swinging bridge of the universal search for self.Praise forThe Swinging BridgeBeautiful luminous and an utter pleasure to read. A writer as necessary as Ramabai Espinet should be treasured by us for her unique voice and the unique world she shares with us.Jamaica KincaidThe Swinging Bridge is a sweeping story . . . of rich heritagea blend of Indian and Caribbean sounds scents and celebrations.NOW MagazineAn extraordinary achievement in the exercise of remembering. . . . Highly charged with moral intent.George Lamming