Brent Zephyrine

Though Irish by birth, she re­flect­ed strong­ly on her Trinida­di­an parent­age as she cul­mi­nat­ed the evening's pro­ceed­ings when she read an ex­cerpt from her lat­est nov­el 'Valmi­ki's Daugh­ter', long-list­ed for the Sco­tia­bank Giller prize. "It was not what she (Vive­ka) would have called a beach. A beach to her mind need­ed to be long and wide enough for more than two peo­ple to pic­nic there; for a large Trinida­di­an fam­i­ly with ex­tend­ed rel­a­tives and their friends and friends of those friends; a crowd large enough to form two full teams for vol­ley­ball and enough friends to play the bat and ball ver­sion of crick­et," she read. Valmi­ki's Daugh­ter, Mootoo's third nov­el, like her ear­li­er work-Cereus Blooms at Night and He Drown She in the Sea-is vivid­ly set and full of elab­o­rate phys­i­cal de­tails clear­ly in­her­ent from a writer who al­so works as a vi­su­al artist and film­mak­er.