Endangered Species

Centred on Bermuda, but traversing America, London, the Gambia and the Cote d'lvoire, these stories explore both the ways in which differences of place, colour, class and culture divide people of the African diaspora, and also the ways in which aspects of their culture, such as food and music, make for a unity that is real, if submarine. And as Mame Koumba, pointing to his Black British grandchildren, tells Gambian Doudou, grieving for the loss of ancestral wholeness, 'They're not what you would have had in the Gambia. But they're what you have. And there's Africa in them all.' This is undoubtedly the most significant work of fiction to come out of Bermuda, giving a glimpse into a society which lies culturally somewhere between the USA, the Caribbean and its British colonial past. The stories also have a powerful sense of Atlantic connection in their linking of Bermuda, Africa, the UK, and the USA.