The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Author:

Monique Roffey was born in Trinidad to immigrant parents and attended school there and in England where she earned a degree in English and Film and later a doctorate in creative writing. Roffey has written a total of 6 novels which have been nominated for several awards such as the Orange Prize, Encore Award, Goldsmiths Prize, and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. Her work has also won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Costa Book Award for Novel, and Costa Book of the Year. She is a professor and advocate for writers of Trinidad and the Caribbean.

Learn More about Monique Roffey

Three words to describe this read:

Doomed- The story was nonlinear so the ending is read before the beginning. This arrangement adds an air of mystery to some of the earlier events while also giving a sense of doom to the hopes and aspirations of the main characters at “the beginning” of the story.

Honest- One of the main characters, Sabine, is openly critical of Trinidad and repeatedly complains about many aspects of living in the country that is not her home.

Political- The story discusses some of the biggest historical figures of Trinidad’s independence movement. Knowing nothing about this history prior to reading the book, it proved very interesting and very convenient since I was traveling to Trinidad at the time. I even slightly impressed my best friend’s Trinidadian husband when I knew the name Eric Williams (Don’t deny it, Joachym. You were impressed.).

Quote:

“Win her. Maybe he could. Not with his songs or dancing or poems, no, bollocks to that. He would write, write. Write something which might actually matter, for once.”

There were a lot of quotes that I liked and a few that I considered for my favorite, but this won because of the last line. Often I feel that nothing that I write matters and long for a day when I can feel that it does. But I do suppose that if it matters to me, then it must count.