Azúcar by Nic Ayikwei Parkes
British Ghanian fiction
Source – Review copy
As you all know it is rare for me to review a review copy that isn’t a book in translation but this is one of those that fit the books that aren’t in translation I will review they are books that appeal to me from small publishers, books from either Africa or the Caribbean and lastly a book from a writer I have read and love well this is a rare occasion of a book that ticks every box for me. I reviewed his debut novel very early on in the blog and so when the chance to get to read his second novel as Nii Ayikwei Parkes is one of those writers that writes in any form, he has published a number of volumes of poetry and written children’s books in the 14 years since his debut Tail of the bluebird which I Reviewed very early on in the blog and was one of my favourites the year I read it . I managed to Cath his interview on open books about this and why he choose to set it in an imagined Spanish Caribbean island to move it away from the place and make it about the situation and the characters.
His name was not Yunior; it was Oswald Kole Osabutey Jar.
When the Spanish tutor first asked for his name, he had said it clearly, but Profesor Hernandez had forgotten, and the next time he called Oswald to conjugate a verb, instead of pointing and asking what his name was, as he did with some of the other students – mainly boys from Angola, Southern Sudan, Cape Verde and a sprinkling of girls – Profesor Hernandez snapped his fingers and blurted out, «Yunior.”
Overwhelmed by the newness of everything – the fertile green of our vegetation he could see clearly from his seat by the open window, the weight of concentration it took to follow what he was being taught, the thickness of our Cs and dip of our double Ls, Oswald Kole Osabutey ]nr. opted for the safest utterance – “Si,” he responded.
As a young boy wide eyed at the place and overwhelm the young Yuinor
Fumaz the imagery country at the heart of this book, could, in fact, be any island in the Caribbean in the Guardian review they said it was Cuba but I felt a bit of Haiti init when I read the book follows a number of characters Yunior a young boy from Ghana a boy that has come to study music and has two loves music and plants so when he gets the chance to study on the island of Fumaz that is famed for its very sweet rice crop. He later decides against it. music and follows his heart and studies to become a scientist on plants which is how the two later on meet in the book. Then we have Emelina Santos her grandfather started the whole sweetened rice for the island to grow and made a fortune with it so she is from the upper class of the island her time is split between the island and the US growing up. She sees the young boy in a band Yunior and we follow her life and find out how her family came to make so much money. But the two collide later in adult life as the rice sweetened by sugar is failing and the one man that may help is the boy now a man Junior. As they try to save the island.
His name is Juan Soñada Santos. She already knows this, but he tells her anyway. His family own a chain of shops on the Sun Coast, but their wealth derives mainly from sales of sweet rice grown on their family farm in Fumaz. When he speaks, she notes the gentle movements of his hands. His African ancestry is not obvious, but she traces it in the undertone of his skin, the kinks in his hairline, the tremulant bass of his laugh
Emelina’s forefathers started the sweetened rice craze that the island is so well known for.
This is a book that feels like a 1000-page novel squeezed into a novella but without feeling cheated rich in imagery of leaving home, lost dreams, island life, a storytelling tradition. You feel the island come to life through the two main characters’ eyes that of coming and trying to make your way and then someone that has come from a family that made it as we view their rise over the years. It is a book rich you can tell Parkes is a poet but also his love of music shines through I did in parts imagine the Buena Vista social club those beats that mixture of music that can only come from the Caribbean a melting pot of the US, Latin America and Africa. You could also say the book has the same mix of voices Marquez the vibrant world he brought to life, a writer like Toni Morrison for family tales of the hard world we can live in and then a writer like Asare Konadu an early writer from Ghana whom I compared to his debut novel a number of years ago. This is a book that follows two people but also is a history of an island and those that left Africa to try and get a better life in the Caribbean. Another thread is an ecological warning about plants and crops and why we want to grow crops a certain way, all packed into less than 180 pages. Have you read this or his debut novel? Azúcar by Nii Ayikwei Parkes is published by Peepal Tree Press the UK’s leading publisher of Caribbean and Black writing, available in paperback from Amazon and Waterstones.
Winstons score – A- a stunning epic in miniature, let’s hope I don’t have to wait 14 years for his third novel !!
