In the shadow of paradise

Thandi is fifteen years old and about to drown in the marina at a river estuary in the fishing village where she was born. She cannot swim and has entered the water trying to evade the questions of Charles, her peer, and at the same time hoping to be joined by him. Behind her is the imposing skeleton of a hotel under construction. When the young man realises that the sea is taking her away, he dives in to save her.

Jamaicans call this dangerous stretch of coastline now prey to developers 'Heidi in Sweet Expectation': according to legend, a slave girl called Heidi drowned herself there after discovering she was expecting a child by her master. What has changed for poor black Jamaican girls today? This is often asked by those who read Here come the sun, the masterful debut novel by Nicole Denis-Benn, born in Kingston in 1982.

Little Thandi, one of the main characters, knows that she has to steer clear of men, and not only because her mother Delores always tells her that boys only want one thing from girls (adding that she must therefore demand something in return, and stay away from ragamuffins like Charles): there is something her mother does not know, that she has not confessed to anyone (she will tell Charles one day, precipitating events). Every morning Delores leaves early to go to the market to sell souvenirs to tourists. Her sister Margot is also rarely seen: she works at a resort and to pay for her schooling, unbeknownst to anyone, she stays with clients at night. Both expect more from Thandi than a marriage of convenience: they want her to become a doctor and redeem them. In her they project very fragile dreams and hopes, which they would otherwise no longer be allowed to have, and which, despite Margot's shrewdness, at any moment risk disappearing. Expectations always in the balance, to which the reader also remains captivated.

Neither Delores nor Margot, in fact, asked Thandi's opinion, and she gets by as best she can. She studies, has good grades, but does not want to be a doctor, she wants to be an artist. It was by drawing, after all, that she fell in love with Charles. A love opposed not only by her mother: the boys of the village leave her aside, her speech purged of patois, her controlled manners, her always impeccable uniform make them think she despises them, so much does she work to distance herself from her social class. Even in the nuns' school for the rich, Thandi remains alone: her classmates shun her, her too-dark skin exudes affliction and poverty.

With its three desperate protagonists determined to stay afloat and somehow become the actresses of their own destiny,Here come the sun appears at first to be a story of vindication and revenge. But as the plot nimbly unfolds, the Caribbean paradise shows itself for what it is: a neo-colonial hell where all beauty, natural or human, is sold, and thus annihilated. No one escapes it: even those who seemed to be positive characters are transformed, showing dark and sinister sides, and the most noble actions reveal their tormented ferocity.