Monique Roffey's vibrant homage to the Caribbean, ARCHIPELAGO, has already incurred clamorous international praise. The book has now been longlisted in the Fiction genre category for this year's OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
The annual award allows Caribbean writers to submit work to a panel of distinguished Caribbean and international writers, editors and scholars and gives hopefuls the chance to win $10,000. The winners in all three genre categories will be announced on March 17, and the prize presented a month later, at the NGC Bocas Literature Festival in Roffey's native Port-of-Spain.ARCHIPELAGO chronicles the geographical and psychological journey of a man, his daughter and their dog across the sea. Leaving a home haunted by memories, the trio travel to unknown harbours and encounter the natural world around them like never before.
Praise for ARCHIPELAGO:
'[ARCHIPELAGO]… is a major contribution to the new wave of Caribbean writing: energetic, uncompromising, bold in the choice of narrative devices, and a great read. Roffey is a magical storyteller…' - Olive Senior, Jamaican poet, short story writer and Commonwealth Prize-winner
'A sparkling portrayal of the Caribbean, the outer layer of the plot is a magical sea voyage through the islands between Trinidad and the Panama Canal. The real story of ARCHIPELAGO, however, is a deeply moving journey through grief… Roffey conjures up pictures of the Caribbean without glossing over the problems.' -- Kate Saunders, We Love This Book
'ARCHIPELAGO travels to new, intoxicating latitudes… The result is an adventure blazing with a lust for life… …[This is a] big-hearted Moby-Dick story for our times.' -- Kapka Kassabova, The Guardian
'Islands are everywhere in this stunningly rendered novel, reminding or teaching us anew about our individual selves against their history-mired backdrops… The novel is replete with achingly beautiful descriptions of the world that frames these seafarers…' -- Shivanee Ramlochan, Trinidad Guardian
