In Praise of Island Women & Other Crimes: Short Fiction

In this collection of short stories, meditations and prose poems, Brenda Flanagan celebrates the capacity of women to endure with resilience, stoicism and frequently humour. The stories give a vivid picture of an island very like Trinidad, across the past fifty years, touching on women of many ages and ethnicities, of women in town or country, or in flight from the hard circumstances of island life and in search of material security in the USA.

Above all, Brenda Flanagan penetrates to the heart of Trinidad's satirical culture of picong, and the way that playing with the word sustains a sense of self and community.

`What the best musicians do with wood and brass and air, Brenda Flanagan does with words - she gives them voice and life... And there you are, on the island, in the midst of it all.' Janet Kauffman

`Brenda Flanagan joins Marshall, Danticat... Caribbean American women who've done so much to add new colors and rhythms to an American prose that can often be dull and gray...' Ishmael Reed

Trinidad born Brenda Flanagan teaches creative writing and Caribbean and African American Literatures at Davidson College, North Carolina. She is the author of two novels, You Alone are Dancing and Allah in the Islands (Peepal Tree Press). She is also a United States cultural ambassador, and has served in numerous countries, including Tunisia, Libya, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Tajikistan, Chile, and Panama.