IRA MATH­UR

This week, Book­shelf fea­tures Bermu­di­an writer An­gela Bar­ry, whose nov­el, The Drowned For­est, was pub­lished by Peepal Tree Press in June 2022.

The fol­low­ing is the com­men­tary on the nov­el by Peepal Tree Press’s pub­lish­er and ed­i­tor, Je­re­my Poynt­ing.

“Bermu­da tends to be left out of the reck­on­ings of the es­sen­tial Caribbean as an is­land dom­i­nat­ed by a white elite, the haunt of rich Amer­i­cans in ab­surd shorts. Its lit­er­a­ture is summed up by the fa­mous 17th-cen­tu­ry po­em of An­drew Mar­vell about the es­cape of per­se­cut­ed Pu­ri­tans to the “re­mote Bermu­das” to an isle where the cre­ator “hangs in shades the or­ange bright,/Like gold­en lamps in a green night”–lines bor­rowed by Derek Wal­cott for the ti­tle of his first col­lec­tion.

“An­gela Bar­ry’s The Drowned For­est is the nov­el for which Bermu­dans (and oth­er Caribbean read­ers) have been wait­ing. With­out push­ing a pro­sa­ic his­to­ry les­son on the read­er, it is a dy­nam­ic pic­ture of an is­land which is among the ear­li­est sites of Eng­lish coloni­sa­tion and al­most cer­tain­ly Shake­speare’s in­spi­ra­tion for The Tem­pest.

“An­gela Bar­ry would not claim to be the first se­ri­ous Bermu­dan nov­el­ist–that ti­tle be­longs to Bri­an Bur­land, au­thor of sev­er­al nov­els from 1960s-80s and wrote pre­dom­i­nant­ly about the white elite.

“In The Drowned For­est, An­gela Bar­ry en­com­pass­es the full range of Bermu­dan so­ci­ety through the voic­es of five char­ac­ters from dif­fer­ent spaces–class, race, gen­der and age. Her fic­tive de­vice is to bring these char­ac­ters to­geth­er around the cri­sis of a trou­bled black teenage girl, Gen­e­sis, who, as the ex­tract in­di­cates, avoids a cus­to­di­al sen­tence on­ly be­cause three ill-as­sort­ed women are brought to­geth­er to men­tor her.”

Ex­cerpt from the open­ing chap­ter of The Drowned For­est with full per­mis­sion from Peepal Tree Press ex­clu­sive­ly for The Sun­day Guardian WE mag­a­zine.

“Ni­na hes­i­tat­ed on the doorstep of Sweet Airs and watched as Tess, in full host­ess mode, looked Gen­e­sis up and down and then pulled her in­side.

Set­ting foot on the es­tate for the first time, Ni­na had ex­pect­ed to feel what she al­ways felt when con­front­ed by con­spic­u­ous wealth– a pleas­ant sense of su­pe­ri­or­i­ty over those bur­dened with priv­i­lege. His­to­ry was not on their side. But all the sharp com­ments she’d man­aged not to make to Tess dur­ing the past few weeks and the flash­es of ir­ri­ta­tion she hoped had not been vis­i­ble on her face had all re­ced­ed and been sup­plant­ed by con­cern for all things Gen­e­sis. Ni­na could see it, feel it. That day in Fam­i­ly Court.

The mag­is­trate, a woman with a se­vere grey bun at the nape of her neck, made her pro­nounce­ment.

‘You …’ She cast steely eyes on Gen­e­sis, ‘are at a cross­roads and you …’ glanc­ing at the three women, ‘have stepped for­ward to try to guide her on­to the right …’ The girl’s head was down. Was she lis­ten­ing? ‘Miss Smith, stand up!’

Gen­e­sis stood, tug­ging at the hem of her school sweater. Fi­nal­ly, she looked up.

‘Miss Smith … Your as­sault on a fel­low stu­dent in­volved a de­gree of vi­o­lence that mer­its se­vere pun­ish­ment.’ The girl’s hands stopped fid­get­ing, but her face was blank.

The mag­is­trate leaned for­ward. ‘I could lock you up.’ She paused. ‘I should lock you up!’

The girl’s body swayed, and Ni­na could see her hand trem­bling as she grasped her sweater. The thought Not so tough sound­ed in her mind.

The mag­is­trate sat back in her chair. ‘But I’m not go­ing to.’ She leaned for­ward again, forc­ing the girl to meet her eyes. ‘But let’s get this straight. Mrs Ni­na Fox has agreed to act as your le­gal guardian un­til you are eigh­teen, and Mrs Alexan­der and Ms Pereira have com­mit­ted to play an ac­tive role in your life un­til then. They are giv­ing you the chance to be dif­fer­ent. To be bet­ter. With­out them, it’s jail time at the Youth Fa­cil­i­ty and af­ter that … They are the ones giv­ing you the chance, not me!’

They had all known Gen­e­sis at dif­fer­ent times and in dif­fer­ent ways. Lizzie was first when she had be­come the trou­bled 11-year-old girl’s ‘Big Sis­ter’. As a young woman mak­ing her way in the is­land’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, Lizzie’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Big Broth­ers and Sis­ters of Bermu­da was the sort of thing that looked good on a re­sume, Ni­na thought. She had been next, meet­ing four­teen-year-old Gen­e­sis when she’d shown up at the clin­ic want­i­ng to avoid get­ting ‘knocked up’. Fi­nal­ly, Tess had on­ly re­cent­ly be­come in­volved but brought with her the full weight of her women’s or­gan­i­sa­tion.

In the time since the court hear­ing, Ni­na had strug­gled to find com­mon ground with the oth­er two.

Last week’s meet­ing with the pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer had re­mind­ed her of how dif­fer­ent all oth­er re­la­tion­ships were. Gen­e­sis’s on­ly hope was for the three of you to work to­geth­er, the pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer had said. It would be an act of will. As Ni­na stood there, hes­i­tat­ing, she felt noth­ing but un­cer­tain­ty about this gath­er­ing, which was sup­posed to seal their com­mit­ment.

–End of ex­cerpt

Bermu­di­an by birth, An­gela Bar­ry lived abroad for more than 20 years–in Eng­land, France, The Gam­bia, Sene­gal and the Sey­chelles–be­fore re­turn­ing to Bermu­da, where she worked as a lec­tur­er un­til re­tir­ing in 2016. She holds a PhD in Cre­ative Writ­ing from Lan­cast­er Uni­ver­si­ty, where she re­flect­ed on her con­nec­tions with the African di­as­po­ra. She is the au­thor of En­dan­gered Species and Oth­er Sto­ries (2002) and the nov­el Goree: Point of De­par­ture (2010).

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023. (www.iras­room.org)