The Mermaid of Black Conch: The spellbinding winner of the Costa Book of the Year as read on BBC Radio 4

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The mermaid is a real character in the myth that we are all living in—a 400-year story where we think we can own or control one another, where power is currency, and where this delusion is driving us to a kind of Armageddon, that may be a requirement of rebirth. An extraordinary, beautifully written, captivating, visceral book – full of mythic energy and unforgettable characters, including some tremendously transgressive women. . . . It is utterly original – unlike anything we’ve ever read – and feels like a classic in the making from a writer at the height of her powers. It’s a book that will take you to the furthest reaches of your imagination – we found it completely compelling.” —Suzannah Lipscomb, chair of Costa Book Awards Judges, 2020 A deaf boy named Reggie who likes to feel the bass vibrations of loud Reggae course through his body yet is oddly satisfied when using 1976-era headphones to accomplish that. A beautifully, subtly written tale of an ancient woman, Aycayia, cursed to be a mermaid, captured in a fishing competition by white USA men then rescued by David Baptiste, a local fisherman who falls in love with her. It's good, it's really fine, I'm just getting old and have such a low tolerance for all this magical realism whimsicality.

Ah, I love this idea of verbal acrobatics as kind of like this superpower. I mean, colonizers often didn’t learn the language of the people they colonized; but in being forced to learn the language of their colonizers, the colonized learned to wield it like a weapon, I would say.

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And I do find it fascinating how so many other authors we’ve read — Mexican author Fernanda Melchor who wrote Hurricane Season; Jamaican-born Nicole Dennis-Benn who wrote Patsy; Japanese writer Mieko Kawakami, who wrote Breasts and Eggs; and now Monique Roffey — have all created outsider/othered characters, other women characters, to explore complex social issues, from misogyny, to femicide, to homophobia and transphobia, to colorism and racism. A fisherman on the beach at Maracas Bay on the northern coast of Trinidad. Photograph: Aaron Mccoy/Getty Images/Robert Harding Worl This could have illuminated the narcissism-born blindspots of the explorers and their successors. This could have been a subversive commentary on the damage colonialism has done to generations of Indigenous and Afro Carribean people; lost knowledge, culture, faith, science, etc. This could have been an examination of the fear and exploitation of young women's sexuality, and male entitlement to feminine bodies. This could have been a parable for the effects unfettered capitalism has had on tropical regions, which have been hit head-on with the consequences of climate change already. This could have torn the whole Manifest Destiny idea a new one. Writing style was okay, if self-objectifying. Content was out of touch. As far as I'm concerned, this is an accidental horror novel. Told in poetic, meticulous prose interspersed with oral storytelling verse, this novel is a love story between a mermaid and a fisherman. While this may seem like a tale often told, it is set apart by the rich materiality of the writing and of its Caribbean setting. While this is a true romance, a lush dance between two compelling characters, it is also about the logics and the violence of possession: how greed, envy, and the quest to own — land, money, people — hurts nature, people, and love itself.

Deep down, in his balls, he knew he'd done something unjust. I personally don't think of this region as the seat of justice, despite the origins of the word "testify". What makes the novel sing is how Roffey fleshes out mythical goings-on with pin-sharp detail from the real world." - The Observer Race also plays a role in the story. Most of the characters in the book are conscious of The Caribbean’s history of colonisers. At one point David Baptiste regrets that his surname is a French one. The only major white character, Arcadia Rain (the Americans only make brief appearances in the beginning and end) is more like her Caribbean neighbors as she speaks the dialect. Coming from an island that has been under many different occupations, I was able to relate to this aspect of the book. One can’t help admiring the boldness of Roffey’s vision. . . . Sentence by sensuous sentence, Roffey builds a verdant, complicated world that is a pleasure to live inside. . . . Aycayia is a magical creature, though rendered so physically you might start to believe in the existence of mermaids.” —Shruti Swamy, The New York TimesOkay, anyone who knows me as a reader knows this book isn't going to be my cup of tea. I really don't like magical realism no matter how many awards the book has won. Wonderfully written, with both soul and intense drama – it glistens almost, like the mermaid!” —Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People I saw The Mermaid.. as a commentary on gender. Aycayia is punished by the gods for being beautiful but the same thing happens with one with normal citizens. There is an incident where a jealous neighbor does her best to ruin Aycayia. There is also a scene where two of the main protagonists are wondering why women tend not to get along with each other. Saying that, including Acycayia, the other female characters are strong and destroy stereotypical concepts some of the male characters in the book have about women. Elsewhere one of the Americans in the novel bullies his son for not liking masculine pursuits.

The novel is a unique Caribbean fable that takes the familiar story of a mermaid abruptly thrust onshore and brings it to a new place. It reads like the work of a novelist in command of her material and focused on using a mythic ‘then’ to speak to now.” —Malachi McIntosh, fiction chair, OCM Bocas Prize 2021As a relationship of fascination develops between David and Aycayia, it becomes Aycyia’s undoing and she is caught and at the mercy of sinister men. When the men are distracted, David saves Aycayia and hides her.

Since we started this podcast, I’ve been able to find so much literature written by Caribbean authors, and it made me realize that the thing I had been seeking all along has always been out there, like right under my nose, right? And that perhaps I wasn’t looking hard enough, or perhaps the past couple of years, and technology, and the impetus of doing this podcast have increased exposure. So, I know I have loved being able to incorporate fiction from various Caribbean perspectives into my library, and what grabbed me about this book is that it’s a love story centered on a mythical creature — a mermaid — that weaves in the complex story and history of the Caribbean and the resultant impact of colonization, but without centering on it.However, with the exception of two rainstorms (fish and like, jellyfish, raining down from the sky), Roffey manages to make this story of a mermaid believable. So it wasn't my skepticism that kept me from fully embracing this story. However, this new life will take a while to adjust and cannot last forever, not when you’ve been cursed by a goddess.