Presenter of
the National Book Awards
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Presenter of
the National Book Awards
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Lucy Scott is a translator of Caribbean literature written in Dutch and French. Her short story and essay translations have appeared in Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee Review and in Wilderness House Literary Review. More about this author >
In 1966, at the age of 19, Astrid Roemer emigrated from Suriname to the Netherlands. She was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize in 2016, and the Dutch Literature Prize (Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren) in 2021. More about this author >
Filed in the following archives
Translated from the Dutch
From the publisher:
A classic of queer literature that’s as electrifying today as it was when it originally appeared in 1982, On a Woman’s Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America’s tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by the passionate romances of the present but haunted by society’s expectations and her ancestral past.
Translated into sensuous English for the first time by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer’s intimate novel—with its tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers—is a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey.
