A groundbreaking novel in Caribbean literature and winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Novel from the acclaimed Trinidadian writer.
A mysterious child, half-human, half-frog, is born on the island of Corpus Christi in the West Indies. Its mother becomes Magdalena Divina, patron saint of the island, worshipped by Hindu and Muslim Caste Indians, Africans, Catholics, and indigenous Indians alike. The frogchild, allegedly drowned in a pot of callaloo by the wife of the man who sired it, becomes the focus of an evolving legend as Johnny Domingo hears this story about his family from different people and tries, impossibly, to piece it together into one coherent and true account.
“This is magical realism with an avant-garde twist, as if Garcia M[á]rquez and Joyce had themselves engaged in unholy cohabitation.” —The Washington Post Book World
Praise for Robert Antoni
“Robert Antoni is a treasure of our literary culture.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author
“Robert Antoni doesn’t make giant steps. He makes quantum—and sometimes hilarious—leaps past whatever we called metafiction to the same territory as Richard Powers and David Foster Wallace. But like those men and unlike nearly everybody else, he never forgets that at the core of it all you’ve still got to tell a rip-roaring story.” —Marlon James, New York Times–bestselling author
