In the Caribbean, at the beginning of the last century, a poor rice-growing family struggle to exist. Four siblings pass their days in the rice field, as does Ma. But Pa is an angry man ready to vent. It is the August rainy season and above their heads the black sky crackles with lightning.
On the day that Pa nearly drowns Ma in a tub of washing water, the children and their mother escape into the cane fields to wait out Pa's rage. But eight-year-old Rama, catches a chill in the rain and falls ill. What follows is a tale of the inheritance of loss. It contains a heart-stopping intensity that places it as one of the greatest Caribbean novels ever written.
About the Author
Harold Sonny Ladoo was born in Trinidad in 1945 and emigrated to Toronto in 1968 with his wife and two children. In 1972 he graduated from the University of Toronto and his first novel, No Pain Like This Body, was published, earning Ladoo immediate recognition as a new literary talent. The following year he returned to Trinidad to settle a land dispute but was murdered. He was just twenty-eight. His second novel, Yesterdays, was published posthumously in 1974.
