Elektrik

What does it mean to be Caribbean in the 21st century? Is it imprinted in the landscape, the language, or is it perhaps, in the words of Mireille Jean-Gilles (tr. Eric Fishman), "a place that lives in me, and that I unfurl, like a nomad his tent, in each place where I live"? In Elektrik, eight female writers from Haiti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe explore the beauty, pain, and complexity wrapped up in their identity. An undercurrent of silence pervades each story, each poem: a group of women walking silently along the shore, forgotten by the world; a waitress who doesn't dare stand up to her abusive boss; a teenager discovering her sexuality in the shadow of her more outgoing twin sister; and a poet who summons a chorus of sirens, only to warn them: "Keep your voices' beauty from waylaying sailors." In glittering translations from French, Elektrik is a celebration of writing at its very best, of language as defiance.