Tidal Waters

An epistolary, fictional account of one woman moving towards happiness in the black community of Colombia’s Pacific coast. After a long absence, the writer of these letters has come home to Chocó, to the Afro-Colombian community, to her family, to the sea. This is where the Pacific meets the Caribbean, and where she’s establishing herself anew. Tidal Waters is one side of a years-long correspondence describing that homecoming, and her work to build a literary centre, writing career, and festival with and for the people there. Yet it is also a claim-staking of her decision to pursue happiness now; an account of her immersion in the towns and rivers and forests she came from; a redefinition of her relationship to sex and love in real time; and a vision of how creating something (for your community, for yourself) is a way of reading and writing your way into a known place and a new self. “You know me, I’m just like the Pacific. I can be calm one minute and then suddenly break into great powerful waves, which crash down and end up changing the landscape.”