For me, writing began from a love of reading, being in places with characters, beyond my immediate environment. Often, I’d be tucked up in a tree and reading became my love of freedom — roaming in the uncharted territory of imagination with all my armour on, or off, fears laid bare or held tight, my heart quickening, weeping, or expanding — in the other’s world. We have created so many stories, maybe trying to understand the one relationship — our place in this world.
I see Caribbean literature as (evidence of) a love affair with these islands, seas, and our people. I see stories, in any art form, as letters posted to the other, the environment — environment being that which we live with and within, including culture and society, not just nature. This makes “the other” so much more complex, and our relationship that much more complicated. I learned to write outdoors, by the sea, sitting with it on various shores and in favourite spots. The changes around me, underwater, on land, and in the air, were inspiring and, over the years, a constant reminder of how human-centred we are as a species.
This story came out of the sea at me, interrupting my third novel and subsequent writings, again and again. The sound of waves became a calling, roaring, rolling tongues of foam, a gnashing of watery teeth chewing land senses into common sense. It soothed and seeped into my saline self, repeating islands of memories, visions, and spectres. The places, beings, and references in this story are of a region I could only inhabit, or visit, in this way. The character, Amana, along with the Taino and Indigenous focus, allows me to bring to the fore the misconstrued history and almost forgotten First People of the Caribbean, who are still with us and in us. Skelele, and the presence of African spiritual, mythical beings and rituals that exist in the Caribbean, are combined here with colonial and Western realities/futures. This rich conflict and conglomeration of cultures, languages, and coping strategies is the real Caribbean, encircling an even richer marine life and threatened sea.
Land. Leave. Come again. Repeat. This eco-social fantastical way of telling a story is in hope of connecting our imagination to increased environmental actions, big or small, to see how we can live with the other, which includes the invisible, not just people.