Tension and action intensify this novel, which is based on the historical facts surrounding Trinidad's Water Riots on March 23, 1903, a seminal event in the island's struggle for independence from Britain.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
A slow-to-start but ultimately absorbing anatomy of a riot in the writer's native Trinidad--a first novel that is more about passion and political intrigue than about the policies that ostensibly provoke it. Setting his story in 1903, when Trinidad was still a British colony, Anthony revisits a seminal event in the island's struggle for independence as he details a plot to turn the vote on a Waterworks Bill into a riotous rebellion. The plotters are led by two women--Eva, a washerwoman, and Lolotte, a street vendor--and include Greasy Pole, famed for his jail-breaking skills; lawyer Maresse-Smith; and Clem, Eva's new boyfriend. Their plans to incite a riot are threatened by the British authorities and their informers (especially psychopathic cop Sergeant Holder, with whom Eva once lived) and also by moderates like Mzumbo Lazare, Eva's uncle and a prominent lawyer, and white fire-chief Captain Darwent, who's in love with Eva. As oppressors go, the British are pretty tame: At first, they just stand around as mayhem breaks out, waiting for a justice of the peace to be found to read--literally- -the Riot Act. Meanwhile, even though there's much exposition about the state of Trinidadian society, the sustained narrative tension, nicely detailed intrigue, and a number of quixotic individual concerns make this much more than a liberation treatise. Eva, using all her wiles, schemes to get Mzumbo out of town, Darwent to leave his firehouse at a crucial time, and Greasy Pole to escape from jail. And though the riot occurs, it isn't the British reaction but a spurned lover's jealousy that most threatens Eva, as an obsessed Holder stalks her through the violent crowd. The unfolding drama, the vivid characters, and a nail-biting finale, in which the political and the personal converge, more than compensate for this first novel's often earnest politics and prose. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Anthony's new contribution to this publisher's Caribbean Writers Series presents 1903 Trinidad, where Eva's rage at her people's treatment is growing. As her world begins to heat up, Eva decides to participate and form her own brand of rebellion in this moving story of political understanding and change. -- Midwest Book Review
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More About the Author
Michael Anthony was born in Mayaro on 10th February, 1930. He attended the Mayaro Roman Catholic School. The Mayaro landscape later provided much inspiration for his books. He has often said that being born in such a beautiful place like Mayaro had always given him thoughts of being a writer in order to describe it. In this he has acknowledged he has failed. When he was eleven he spent a year in San Fernando , and the story of his year there was a sort of inspiration for his second novel, "The Year in San Fernando ."
Michael Anthony could be said to have begun his career at 23, when he began having poems published in the Trinidad Guardian. Although his first love was poetry he looked forward to writing prose. At 24, in 1954, he went to England, where he began writing short stories for a BBC literary programme for West Indian writers, called "Caribbean Voices."
As a result of the closure of the programme in 1958, he made his first attempt at a novel. Not finding that particular attempt satisfactory he tried another, which dealt with the annual "Southern Games" at Guaracara Park , Pointe-à-Pierre, where he worked at the oil refinery. The publication of this novel set him on the road he had always wanted. He then wrote "The Year in San Fernando" (1965) and "Green. Days by the River" (1968) Illness caused him to leave the cold English climate in 1968, and finding no job at home in Trinidad he opted to go to Brazil. There he spent two years. Because of a number of considerations including economic and family, he returned to Trinidad in 1970 and has been here ever since.
Michael Anthony received the Humming Bird gold medal at the National Awards ceremony of August 31, 1979, and he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D. Litt.) at the University of the West Indies Graduation Exercises of October 31, 2003.
Up to the moment he has written 31 books and is busy at work on his 32nd.
NALIS (the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago) was kind to him in 2003 to install, under their auspices, a full collection of his work in the NALIS library at Pierreville, Mayaro, and they even indulged him in 2005 when they purchased some of his later papers, being housed at their headquarters library in Port-of-Spain. (Some of his earlier papers had been acquired by the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine in 2003)
Michael Anthony could be said to have begun his career at 23, when he began having poems published in the Trinidad Guardian. Although his first love was poetry he looked forward to writing prose. At 24, in 1954, he went to England, where he began writing short stories for a BBC literary programme for West Indian writers, called "Caribbean Voices."
As a result of the closure of the programme in 1958, he made his first attempt at a novel. Not finding that particular attempt satisfactory he tried another, which dealt with the annual "Southern Games" at Guaracara Park , Pointe-à-Pierre, where he worked at the oil refinery. The publication of this novel set him on the road he had always wanted. He then wrote "The Year in San Fernando" (1965) and "Green. Days by the River" (1968) Illness caused him to leave the cold English climate in 1968, and finding no job at home in Trinidad he opted to go to Brazil. There he spent two years. Because of a number of considerations including economic and family, he returned to Trinidad in 1970 and has been here ever since.
Michael Anthony received the Humming Bird gold medal at the National Awards ceremony of August 31, 1979, and he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D. Litt.) at the University of the West Indies Graduation Exercises of October 31, 2003.
Up to the moment he has written 31 books and is busy at work on his 32nd.
NALIS (the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago) was kind to him in 2003 to install, under their auspices, a full collection of his work in the NALIS library at Pierreville, Mayaro, and they even indulged him in 2005 when they purchased some of his later papers, being housed at their headquarters library in Port-of-Spain. (Some of his earlier papers had been acquired by the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine in 2003)
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