Featured Writer: Amanda Smyth
Amanda Smyth is my featured writer of the month. Smyth represents a true true Trini with roots spreading across continents, here and not there, Trinidad and Ireland, Tobago and England. For those who haven't read her, here is an introduction both to Amanda and her books. And for those familiar with her work here is a sliver of her clear writing written for the first featured book of this blog.
Amanda Smyth’s first novel, Black Rock, won the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger and was selected as an Oprah Winfrey summer read and nominated for an NAACP award for outstanding literary work. Her second novel, A Kind of Eden, was published in 2013. Her short stories have appeared in New Writing, London Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her third novel, Fortune will be published by Peepal Tree Press in 2021. She teaches at Arvon, Skyros, and Coventry University.
Amanda Smyth for Ira’s Room
December 6, 2020
I've been writing about Trinidad ever since I can remember. It's a place that moves me: its light, landscape, heat, smells; people I love are there. My Trinidadian mother first took me when I was a baby. From Sligo, on the west coast of Ireland, the journey was long and exhausting, especially with two small children. She made this journey many times. Trinidad was a piece of her heart. It became a piece of mine, too.
I have a thousand memories to draw on—some good, some terrible, but when I look at my work, I realise, a combination of memories and a deep attachment to Trinidad, informs my writing more than anything else.
"My great-grandfather was murdered near Tamana; his murderers were never found. As a child, I'd hear my great aunts and grandmother talking about him in the veranda in the late afternoons. I felt as if I knew him. Their stories caught me. I started to write them down. I began writing my first novel, BLACK ROCK, with a question that plagued his children: Who could have killed him?
My second novel, A KIND OF EDEN, came after a family member experienced a violent robbery in Port of Spain. That same year, I experienced an attempted break-in while living in London. It was terrifying, and I wanted to write about it. I might have set the novel in London Bridge where my break-in happened, but I chose instead to write about a robbery in Mount Irvine, Tobago. I imagined the violence so well, it haunted me for a long time.
When I began my third novel, I knew only that I wanted to write about an explosion. I began researching the 7/7 London bombings in 2005 and was sketching out multiple narratives about causality, fate, destiny. But then my mother pointed me towards the Dome Fire in Trinidad in 1928, where many people lost their lives in an explosion. I immediately started work on FORTUNE.
From the moment I land at Piarco, I feel a sense of homecoming and rightness. Yet, almost always, I feel when I'm in Trinidad like an outsider. In the late 90s, I attended creative writing workshops with Wayne Brown at the Normandie Hotel. These classes changed my life. Once I arrived carrying a bottle of water—an empty Evian bottle filled with tap water. (I love Trinidad tap water.) Wayne raised his eyebrows and said, Oh, I see our water not good enough!
Perhaps this feeling of displacement is what drives me to write. In some way, the act of writing creates a swift passage over the Atlantic; it means that when I'm in England, I'm also there.
When I was 18, my cousin died in a car accident near the Fernandes complex. It was very difficult to deal with, especially as we were so close. For a while I hated Trinidad and all it represented. The pain and suffering for a family when a young life is taken, never, ever stops. It is a terrible memory to draw on. Now I've finished FORTUNE, I've been thinking of what to write next, and while circling new ideas, I find myself wanting to write about her, about the shocking collision on the eastern main road. Once again, I find myself coming home to Trinidad.
Fortune will be published by Peepal Tree on 24th June, 2021
Praise for Amanda Smyth’s work:
'Amanda Smyth writes like a descendant of Jean Rhys.
Black Rock is a powerful cocktail of heat and beautiful coolness, written in a heady, mesmerising yet translucent prose which marks Smyth out as a born novelist.' - Ali Smith
'[Smyth's] writing is as lushly beautiful as the landscape she describes – it's the kind of novel that leaves your head filled with gorgeous pictures.' Kate Saunders, The Times
'There are hints of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea throughout Smyth's hypnotic, eerie novel. … Smyth writes entrancingly on tropical heat and light, indolence, vengeance and desire.' Catherine Taylor, The Guardian
'Smyth's story is a powerful, authentic one and Celia is an appealing, earthy, yet spiritual heroine who grows, wounded and embattled, through the course of the book.' Lesley McDowell, Independent on Sunday
'Smyth's debut is an absorbing and morally complex read with a bittersweet twist at the end' Melissa McClements, Financial Times
'a captivating read.' Aisling Foster, The Irish Times
'I've a feeling that all reviews of this book will use the word 'exotic' at least once. This is a novel that positively begs for it, with its Caribbean setting, expressive and ornate style, and tangled narrative web of sex, race and emotional turmoil.' Darragh McManus, Irish Independent
'A beautiful, lyrical novel' - Patrick Freyne, Sunday Tribune
'…sings with life, texture and verve.' Victoria Moore, Daily Mail
'Gripping throughout…A stunning and moving portrayal of life for young women in the Caribbean during the 1950s.' Laura Temple, The Scotsman
Amanda Smyth’s three recommended writers:
Thanks for sharing this space with me.
I would love to know your thoughts on our featured author, the books resonate with you and why you turn to books. Do feel free to engage, give me a list of authors you’d like featured, and comment in the section below.
Until we meet again,
Ira