Book Launch: Naniki by Oonya Kempadoo

February 24, 2–4 pm
Librairie Paragraphe Bookstore, Montreal

𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞 and 𝐃𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 present a book launch for 𝑵𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒌𝒊 by 𝐎𝐨𝐧𝐲𝐚 𝐊𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐨.

Join us as author 𝐎𝐨𝐧𝐲𝐚 𝐊𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐨 discusses and signs copies of her latest book 𝑵𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒌𝒊.

Admission is Free.

𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑:

Oonya Kempadoo is the author of three novels and is critically acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic. A creative practitioner with an interest in cross-disciplinary dialogue, she is a citizen of England, Guyana, and Grenada, and currently lives in Montreal.

𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊:

Through luminescent light, ancestral paths, and a Caribbean spirit-inflected world, Naniki explores the musings and inner workings of the deep blue — the Caribbean Sea — and its shape-shifting sea beings.

As the sea mirrors the light from the blue skies, and its depths are exposed by daggers of sunlight, so too Naniki reveals and honours the Indigenous roots of the Caribbean and its people, whose destiny is tied to the sea, the vessel of collective memory.

Amana and Skelele are made of water and air, their essence intertwined with Taino and African ancestry. They evolved as elemental beings of the Anthropocene, and shape-shifting with their naniki (active spirits) or animal avatars, they begin an archipelagic journey throughout the Caribbean Basin to see the strange future they dreamed of. Until devastation erupts.

Tasked by their elders to go back in time to the source of the First People’s knowledge, they must surmount historical and mythological challenges alike. How can they navigate and overcome these obstacles to regenerate themselves, their love, their islands, and their seas?