Senior is particularly deft at exploring social class, maternal terrain, and distance. The territory she writes about could not interest this reader more . . . Senior skillfully depicts the space between mother and children. . . What's remarkable at times is Senior's subtle depiction of family tension, the prodding between mother and daughter, the apprehension of what the one does or mainly does not know of the other.-- "Globe and Mail, on Dancing Lessons"

At every level of her stories' constructions, Senior works deftly . . . dealing with open palms in the deep wells of remembrance, ancestry, and a crosshatch of colonizing scars, this fiction looks face-upwards to the mountains of multiple Jamaicas for hope, home, and daily bread.-- "Trinidad Guardian, on The Pain Tree"

Arrival of the Snake-Woman has consolidated [Olive Senior's] reputation as one of the most accomplished writers of short fiction and as one of the Caribbean's finest creative minds.-- "Caribbean Week, on Arrival of the Snake-Woman"

The entire future of Caribbean prose is mapped out in this collection of stories, and I don't know a single Caribbean writer who doesn't reread it often.--Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, on Summer Lightning

Olive Senior's Paradise Once is a powerful historical novel that vividly portrays a crucial period in the lives of the Taíno people. Senior's work weaves history and mythology, capturing the genesis and heart of Caribbean culture and showcasing her incomparable talent.--Edwidge Danticat, author of Krik? Krak!

In Paradise Once, Olive Senior achieves what no other Caribbean novelist has done before--capture in a poignantly detailed story the human and environmental catastrophe of the early years of the Columbian encounter. Exquisitely researched and steeped in the language and worldview of the Taíno people, this is a historical novel like no other, one grounded in Senior's complete immersion into a world just becoming aware of its imminent disappearance, a world she fiercely and vividly brings back to life in its richness and magic.--Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, author of Creole Religions of the Caribbean

Olive Senior gifts us an incisive view of our Taíno world at contact. I welcome this emerging literature . . . we need it.--José Barreiro (Hatuey), author of Taíno

Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.

Pub date: 2025-06-03

Length: 352 pages