Growing up in Barbados, Austin Clarke was surrounded by women in the kitchen. Enveloped in the heavenly smells and smoke of their cooking, he listened to their talk about the food they were preparing. His mother; several aunts and num...

Winner of Canada's Giller Prize, this novel by a Barbados native is set in the 1950s on a Caribbean island called Bimshire. A murder is committed by an elderly black woman named Mary Gertrude Mathilda, and a policeman in the town, who...