A Shapely Fire: Changing the Literary Landscape

Bruce K. Filson was a freelance writer and critic residing in Chesterville, Ontario.

This lively anthology presents 20 Caribbean-born writers resident or once resident in Canada. Cyril Dabydeen, who should be well known to Canadian readers for his poetry and short fiction, edits and contributes to the book himself. The book includes six stories, one novel excerpt, one play, and poems from 14 poets.

The settings are Caribbean first, Canadian second. The themes are richly human: suffering, confusion, sexuality, comedy, horror, and the political and racial struggles of Caribbean peoples are all felt as real and urgent, not simply as contributory to writing technique. The writers make sure to put us in the environment and mood in a visceral and emotional way. We hear the patter of creole and the distant dream of African drums. We feel the insane power of voodoo. We come to know the insecurity of the immigrant.

The anthology does not so much draw attention to new talent, as claimed by the editor — names like Gerard Etienne and Austin Clarke are hardly new talent, although many others are. And Dabydeen undermines his own work by claiming that it is incidental that the authors are Caribbean-born, for by doing so he betrays the worthy goal of the book: to promote, by means of focusing on, the rich literary culture of a sadly neglected area of the globe with which Canada has unique and intricate ties.