Book description
In Laura Fish's ambitious and captivating novel, three very different
women struggle for freedom. While Elizabeth Barrett Browning is
confined to bed, chafing against the restriction of her doctors and
writing poetry and fretful letters, at her family's Jamaican estate
Kaydia, the Creole housekeeper, tries to protect her daughter from
their predatory master; and a recently freed black slave, Sheba,
mourns the loss of her lover.
As Elizabeth, a passionate abolitionist, struggles to come to terms
with the source of her wealth and privilege both Sheba and Kydia fight
to escape a tragic past which seems ever-present. The resulting novel
is an extraordinary evocation of the dark side of the
nineteenth-century that is both horrifying and ultimately redeeming.
Laura Fish was born in London in 1964, of Caribbean parents. She has
lived in Southern Africa and Australia, and has held posts as a Creative
Writing tutor at various universities including the University of East
Anglia, where she recently completed a PhD in Creative and Critical
Writing. She holds the RCUK Academic Fellowship in Creative Writing at
Newcastle University. Her first novel,
Flight of Black Swans
, was published in 1995.
