Buxton Spice

Back in print: an extraordinary first novel by “a writer to watch and to enjoy.”*
Told in the voice of a girl as she moves from childhood into adolescence, Buxton Spice is the story the town of Tamarind Grove: its eccentric families, its sweeping joys, and its sudden tragedies. The novel brings to life 1970s Guyana–a world at a cultural and political crossroads–and perfectly captures a child”s keen observations, sense of wonder, and the growing complexity of consciousness that marks the passage from innocence to experience.
“A superb, and superbly written, novel of childhood and childhood”s end . . . Kempadoo writes in a rich Creole, filling her story with kaleidoscopic images of Guyana”s coastal plains . . . Her story is also one of sexual awakening, and she explores these new feelings with a curiosity and freedom that are refreshing . . . Kempadoo”s novel, like the Buxton Spice mango tree, reveals its secrets, private and political, only sparingly until the bitter end.”
–Patrick Markee, New York Times Book Review
“Oonya Kempadoo . . . has written a sexy, stirring, richly poetic semi-autobiographical first novel.”
–Gabriella Stern, Wall Street Journal
“As juicy and ripe as the fruits drooping from the Buxton Spice mango tree . . . Kempadoo”s Caribbean argot is precise and fluid, enriching this debut with bawdiness, violence, and raucous humor.”
–Los Angeles Times
“There is a salt freshness to Kempadoo”s writing, an immediacy which makes the reader catch breath for pleasure at the recognition of something exactly observed . . . She is a writer to watch and to enjoy, for her warmth, her fine intelligence and her striking use of language.”
–PaulaBurnett, The Independent (London)*