Tide Running

Cliff and Ossi have grown up in Plymouth on the island of Tobago, their lives turning on the axis of small-town life. One day they watch the arrival of a couple and their child at a luxurious house overlooking the ocean. The couple invites Cliff into their home and lives, and in that cool “flim-style” house, the harsh, brittle life of urban Plymouth is kept briefly at bay, desires obscuring differences in class and race. But then things begin to go wrong—money vanishes, the couple’s car disappears—and those differences are brought suddenly to light, raising unsettling questions about relationships, wealth, and responsibility.

“Oonya Kempadoo’s Tide Running is effective, beautiful, and haunting . . . and pulses with a distinctive Caribbean rhythm.” —Glenville Lovell, Washington Post

“With a finely tuned ear for the cadences of the Caribbean . . .. Kempadoo succeeds in turning an unsettling tale into an exploration of the global politics of desire.” —The New Yorker

“A vividly imagined [tale] by this poetically gifted, politically incisive young Caribbean writer.” —Elle magazine

Oonya Kempadoo, author of Buxton Spice, was born in Sussex, England of Guyanese parents and was raised in Guyana from the age of four. She studied art in Amsterdam and has lived in Trinidad, St. Lucia, Tobago, and now Grenada. She was named a Great Talent for the Twenty-First Century by the Orange Prize judges and is a winner of the Casa de las Americas Prize.