The Pages of the Sea
Anne Hawk
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From the publisher
Heartbreaking, charming and funny, The Pages of the Sea is a window onto the world the Windrush Generation left behind.
After her mother sails from the Caribbean to England to find work, Wheeler is left with her two older sisters, three cousins and two aunts.
She couldn’t feel more alone. She longs for her mother to send for her as promised. Everyone tells her to just wait. But for how long?
In the meantime, she has to learn to get along as best she can, exploring the island with Donelle, making kites with Bounce, following the carnival through town.
But most of all she must avoid the threat of her cousin Floyd.
Set during the mid-1960s on a Caribbean Island, issues of family, migration and abandonment hang over Wheeler and her unknowable future.
A story of sisterhood, family secrets, and the sacrifices of love. No novel comes as close to this heart-breaking evocation of what it’s like to be a child left behind.
“The Pages of the Sea is a beautifully written and intimately imagined debut novel coming out of the Caribbean. Anne Hawk weaves a story rarely told, that of those left behind in the wake of migration to the ‘motherland’. Intensely moving and lyrical, here is a story of our times, another piece of the mosaic of our fractured and remade Caribbean lives.” Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch
“What can I say except I think this is a great novel. The story breaks your heart and, at the very same time, the writing heals it. Anne Hawk’s vision is miraculously, tenderly lucid. I can’t think of a better depiction of the confusions and insights of girlhood.” Toby Litt, A Writer’s Life
“An evocative and at times heartbreaking work of Caribbean fiction filled with the colours and vibrancy of the islands and invested with a deeply personal humanity. In The Pages of the Sea, Anne Hawk gives fresh form to the Windrush era and new voice to its neglected narratives.” Anthony Joseph, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
“This is a stunning debut. It’s great to see a new author championing in fiction the unheard voice of a child left behind in the Caribbean migration story of the 1960s. Beautifully told, The Pages of the Sea will resonate for many thousands.” Yvonne Bailey-Smith, The Day I Fell Off My Island