A Flying Fish Whispered

What begins as a romantic tryst in a tropical setting quickly becomes, in this novel first published in 1938, an imaginative exploration of two opposing cultural and economic frameworks in the Caribbean--the dichotomy between the peasant plot, where cultivation and nature mingle, and the estate where land is simply an industrial resource. When Teresa Craddock rebuilds her life on an island resembling Dominica, she rediscovers lost passion by becoming involved with the new owner of an abandoned estate, Derek Morrel. Torn between her desires and the conflict of values with Morrel, the feisty, witty Teresa eventually comes to realize that Morrel’s attitudes towards her body and the land are the same.

Elma Napier was born in Scotland in 1892, settled in with her family at Calibishie, Dominica in 1932 and became a wholly committed islander. She quickly became a leading literary and political personality on the island. At the time of settling on the island she was already a published author of one book and a variety of articles and short stories for magazines in Australia and Britain. Apart from two autobiographies: ＂ Youth is a Blunder＂ and ＂Winter in July,＂ Elma Napier wrote a further novel with a Dominican setting, ＂Duet in Discord,＂ also under the pen name of Elizabeth Garner. She was a regular contributor to Bim during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1940 she became the first woman to be elected to any Caribbean legislature and served as representative for the North Eastern District for some ten years. She died in Dominica in 1973.