Lean into the narrative of Bruised Hibiscus lest you might miss something important or more likely, something sensuous. The lyrical language is like two songs being sung at the same time. Two love songs in different languages. First, there is the language of the Trinidad village of Otahiti, abuzz with the news of a mysterious white woman pulled from the sea, her eyes and lips eaten away by sea life. An evil has come into their community. Then there is the culture of sexuality, both good and bad, which circles two marriages. Two women share a dark secret from childhood; forever linked after witnessing the brutal violation of a young girl. Zuela is the mother of ten children and runs a grocery shop with her husband in Port-of-Spain. Rosa lives on the other side of town in a two-story house in Taccarigua. As adults Zuela and Rosa are mired in loveless and cruel marriages. When the body of the white woman was first discovered, each woman reacted differently but both shared the sensation of memories of the young girl's violation flooding back. ( )

An exciting Caribbean novel filled with the complexities of colonization and patterns of dominance as they are experienced in the lives of individual men and women.

Elizabeth Nunez writes of life on her home island of Trinidad, as she does in Prospero’s Daughter. This novel, however, has a larger cast of characters. The narrative alternates between two women and the men who abuse them and other happenings on the island. External events crash on private lives. Where Prospro’s Daughter is tight and elegant, Bruised Hibiscus sprawls, exposing a variety unresolved issues. Both books reveal just how good an author Nunez is, showing her concern for personalizing the meaning of colonization and her ability to create characters we care about.

See the rest of my review on my blog. http://tinyurl.com/75er35h