Bruised Hibiscus
Subtitle: A Novel
Publisher: Seal Press
Published: March 14, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9781580050364
Subjects: Women; Literary; American Historical Fiction; Fiction - General; Fiction; Trinidad and Tobago; General; Fiction / Literary; Friendship; Historical fiction
First sentence: It didn't take long for the news to beat through the bamboo and the mangrove bush off the shore from Freeman's Bay in Otahiti, to spread like wildfire once the fisherman, his brown skin turned tar black by the sun, and leathered by the salt in the wind and sea, staggered into the Oropouche Police Station.
Description: "In the village of Otahiti on the island of Trinidad, a fisherman pulls the body of a white woman from the sea. News travels quickly through the small island, and the conclusion "man-woman business" prevails as the assumed motive for the murder. The rage that surfaces as a result of the murder - born of generations of colonialism, sexual oppression and class disparity - is the catalyst for the reunion of two childhood friends, Rosa and Zuela.".

"Inseparable companions during the August holidays of their twelfth year, the two girls witness an unspeakable act through the leaves of a hibiscus bush and shame divides them for twenty years. Rosa, from a family of white plantation owners, falls in love with a black school headmaster named Cedric. Zuela marries a Chinese immigrant three times her age and gives birth to ten children in as many years. Although their lives diverge, both women suffer at the hands of the men they marry.

Memories of the horror witnessed at the hibiscus bush resurface upon hearing about the murdered woman, bringing Rosa and Zuela together in a desperate search for liberation."--BOOK JACKET.