Our Lady of Demerara

By David Dabydeen

Set in the British town of Coventry in the early 1990s, this novel centers on Lance Yardley, a drama critic for a local newspaper. Only 30 years old, he is already a seedy wreck of a man, spending his nights drifting through the derelict areas of the city looking for prostitutes. A working-class boy raised in a broken home, he has sought escape through his marriage to an actress, the great-granddaughter of a 19th-century Englishman who made his fortune from the sugar plantations in Guyana. He finds himself drawn to a mysterious Indian girl called Rohini who works in the antiques store of an elderly friend. When Rohini dies suddenly--the victim of a ritualistic murder--Yardley decides to decamp abroad for a while. He travels to Guyana, wanting to find out more about an Irish priest who was a former missionary there and in Coventry. Yardley hopes he will find some resolution in the priest's fragmented journals, but the Guyana he discovers provokes more questions than answers. In its exploration of degradation and redemption, cross-cultural relationships and sexuality, this is a provocative and hugely inventive novel.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1845231120
• ISBN13: 9781845231125
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Peepal Tree Press
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"