Book now for tomorrow evening:
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Friday 26th
February | 6.30pm | Facebook Live
Join
award-winning author Monique Roffey as she discusses the BLF Book
Club February pick, her latest novel, The Mermaid of Black Conch,
which was recently named as the COSTA Book Awards 'Book of the
Year'. We'll be live on Facebook from 6.30pm - follow us
@BradfordLitFest and look for our live stream.
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The Mermaid of Black Conch
March 1976: St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the
island of Black Conch, at the start of the rainy season. Whilst
waiting for a catch, David, a fisherman, encounters a sea-dweller he
doesn’t expect – a mermaid called Aycayia, centuries old, drawn to
him by his singing. But one day, when swimming towards the sound of
his boat’s engine, she is caught, torn painfully from the sea and
strung up as a trophy by American tourists who are in St Constance
for the annual fishing competition. Having witnessed the battle,
David rescues her and hides her away – where she slowly, painfully
turns into a woman.
But in the tiny community of St Constance, tongues will wag, and dark
forces begin to circle David and Aycayia. A terrible storm brews, and
it becomes clear that the mermaid cannot remain on Black Conch
forever...
Based on a Neo-Taino legend of a beautiful woman transformed into a
mermaid, The Mermaid of Black Conch is a lyrical and vivid story of
love, loss, family and friendship, as well as the destructive power
of jealousy, and the terrible force of nature.
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Monique Roffey
Monique Roffey is an award-winning Trinidadian-born
writer. Her books have been shortlisted for the COSTA Fiction
Award, the Orange Prize and the Encore Award, and she won the OCM
BOCAS Award for Caribbean Literature. She is a Lecturer on the
Novel MFA at Manchester Metropolitan University and has also
taught creative writing and mentored emerging writers in Trinidad
for several years. Monique is an active member of Extinction
Rebellion, and a co-founder of Writers Rebel, an initiative set
up to encourage writers to address the climate emergency in their
work. Her seventh book, The
Mermaid of Black Conch, was released in 2020 and
was named as the COSTA Book of the Year in 2021.
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Join the
Club
Want to take part but not sure how?
It's easy!
- Visit our Facebook page or click the button
below to join our group on Facebook
- Follow us on Twitter and use the hashtag
#BLFBookClub
- It's free! And there's no obligation to read
along each month - drop in and out as you please
- Connect with a welcoming community of readers
with none of the worry - join in the conversation if you want
to, or just read the books, it's completely up to you!
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