Recensori in anteprimaRobert Antoni

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Classic stories by: C.L.R. James, Derek Walcott, Samuel Selvon, Eric Roach, V.S. Naipaul, Harold Sonny Ladoo, Michael Anthony, Earl Lovelace, Robert Antoni, Elizabeth Nunez, Ismith Khan, Lawrence Scott, Wayne Brown, Jennifer Rahim, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, Sharon Millar, Barbara Jenkins, and Shani Mootoo. From the introduction by Earl Lovelace: "Where Trinidad is different even from its Caribbean sisters is the degree to which it has developed its folk arts—its carnival, its steel band, its music—as forms of both rebellion and mediation. These forms have not only continued to entertain us; they ritualize rebellion, speak out against oppression, and affirm the personhood of the downpressed. This rebellion is not evident with the same intensity as it used to be. Independence and political partisanship and the growing distance of the middle class from the folk, among other developments, have seen a fluctuation in the ideals of rebellion. Yet what is incontestable is that these arts have established and maintained a safe space for conflict to be resolved or at least expressed, not in a vacuum but in the face of a status quo utilizing its muscle and myths to maintain a narrative that upholds its interests. As the situation becomes more complex and information more crucial, our literature is best placed to challenge or to consolidate these myths. Individually, we are left to decide on whose behalf our writing will be employed. In this situation, the struggle has been within the arts themselves—whether they see themselves as an extension of rebellion or art as entertainment. Although late on the scene and without the widespread appeal of the native and folk arts, our literature can lay claim to being part of these arts of rebellion, upholding and making visible the dismissed and ignored, lifting the marginalized into personhood, persuading us that a new world is required, and establishing this island as a place in which it can be imagined and created."

In 1845 London, an engineer, philosopher, philanthropist, and bold-faced charlatan, John Adolphus Etzler, has invented machines “powered by the immense forces of Mother Nature” that he thinks will transform the division of labor and free all men. He forms a collective called the Tropical Emigration Society (TES), and recruits a variety of London citizens to take his machines and his misguided ideas to form a proto-socialist, utopian community in the British colony of Trinidad. Among his recruits is a young boy (and the book’s narrator) named Willy. As TES begins its overseas voyage to Trinidad, Etzler recedes quickly to the backdrop, and Willy’s tale takes precedence—in particular his head-over-heels fall for the enthralling and wise Marguerite Whitechurch. Coming from the gentry, Marguerite is a world away from Willy’s laboring class. Speech also divides them, as Marguerite lacks vocal cords—she communicates with Willy in writing. As the voyage continues, and their love for one another strengthens, Willy and Marguerite prove themselves to be true socialists, their actions and adventures standing in stark contrast to Etzler’s disconnected theories. When they arrive at Port of Spain, Willy must part from Marguerite and travel with the men of TES to build the society’s future home—in a remote swamp, only accessible by boat, called Chaguabarriga. Far from realizing their leader’s dreams of a tropical paradise, the pioneers never even get a chance to unpack their Satellite, Etzler’s “self-powered” machine that will mow down the rainforest and plant their first crops. Within weeks the majority of them are stricken with the “Black Vomit.” And now they’re trapped, without a boat to return to civilization . . . Willy and his father—together with their helpmate, an African named John—make a last-ditch attempt to refurbish a schooner that has washed up. But before the ship can be launched Willy’s father contracts the dreaded disease, moving the story towards its heroic, tragic conclusion: Willy’s account of transporting his father out of the jungle on a makeshift stretcher carried by himself, John, and two Warrahoon Indians. For a day and a night they haul him over the mountains of the Northern Range, across the breadth of Trinidad, back to Port of Spain and his family, only to spend his final few hours with them. This epic trek also brings fifteen-year-old Willy to the most trying decision of his life—whether to return to England with Marguerite, or become the head of his family in their new home. Antoni’s tragic historical novel, accented with West Indian cadence and captivating humor, provides an unforgettable glimpse into nineteenth-century Trinidad & Tobago.