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Meet Me in Mozambique by Natasha Brown WITH ease and gentle grace these interlinked short stories dance around Caribbean culture, African diaspora, and the intricacies of relationships with both flair and poise.
Meet Me in Mozambique, shows storytelling in a fine light, as the book reads more like a kaleidoscope novel that tells, in various voices and from different viewpoints, the lives of Pewter Stapleton and his family and friends. Pewter is a 65-year-old writer and academic, who is not looking forward to retirement from his students. We share in his memories of growing up in the Caribbean island of St Caesare - a fictional place that is close to the volcanic island of Montserrat where the author was born in 1939. Markham, the author, left the island in the 1950s to come to England. This reflects the travels of Pewter. As a young man he grew up in the busy London region of Ladbroke Grove and explains his travels to the South of France, Lampeter and Budapest. The memories of Pewter's mother pop up now and again. She is recovering from a stroke and often remembers life on the island. However, she is puzzled about her son because although he passes many exams, he seems incapable of doing anything practical. Pewter's own memories of the island begin with thoughts such as being given brandy to treat a toothache. He has dreams of going to China, and manages to make a trip there when he is older. The purpose was to promote the game of cricket to the Chinese. The writer touches on heavy issues such as racism with humour, although some of it could have been fleshed out a bit more. The stories mainly travel between three continents, the Caribbean, Europe and Africa, often via London where the writer spent his teenage years. The Fifties London in the book is a world of racism, the 1960s a time of political idealism, alongside models of black independence in Ghana, Nigeria and Mozambique. Markham's stories can be confusing at times and I often lost which country I was supposed to be envisaging and in what context of memories. Although the writer is witty and pin-point, I feel some of the description was lost in the ever-changing moment that we jump in to each new story. Having said that the students who Markham teaches Creative Writing to at Sheffield Hallam University are very lucky to have him. |
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