When a young white child growing up in Tanzania discovers why her family's African gardener so dislikes the chameleon she spots in a tree, she is plunged into a puzzled awareness of the complexities of race, colour and difference.

As the 'I' of the stories grows into adulthood in Nigeria, she too becomes a chameleon of sorts, one thing when she is with her Nigerian friends, another with the white tribe when she can no longer resist the lure of the scarce luxuries to be had at the British embassy. When the 'I' makes the crossing from Nigeria to the Caribbean, she discovers that it is not only people who are chameleons. Osun, the Yoruba orisha has also made the journey, a little outwardly changed, but inwardly the same in Trinidadian and Cuban manifestations.

In the earlier stories, the 'I' has a childhood innocence that, in the comment of the distinguished poet UA Fanthorpe, 'sees all the better for not understanding'. With increasing awareness comes a sense of being an outsider in almost all situations, though in playing mas' in the Trinidad carnival, there is a glimpse of the transcendence of belonging to the collective. Whether as the child trying to understand her parents, their Muslim servant's sense of the sacred, or the 'incomprehensible prohibitions' of a colonial childhood, there is a constant tension between the sense of separateness and the desire for belonging. And though each of the stories is a first person narrative, what stands out in Bryce's careful, elegant writing is a very concrete sense of the reality and autonomy of other voices, other views.

About the Author
Jane Bryce lives in Barbados. She is a fiction judge for the 2019 OCM Bocas Literary Awards. She recently retired from the University of the West Indies, where she was responsible for the Department's offerings in the area of African Literature, as well as teaching courses on the novel, poetry, literature of the colonial encounter, creative writing and feminist theory/women's writing. She has taught Creative Writing: Fiction since 1997, a workshop based course designed to equip students with the skills for writing short fiction.


Book Information
ISBN 9781845230418
Author Jane Bryce
Format Paperback
Page Count 112
Imprint Peepal Tree Press Ltd
Publisher Peepal Tree Press Ltd
Weight(grams) 140g