sx salon 47

The tumultuous, remarkable life of the Trinidadian novelist Harold Sonny Ladoo (1945–1973) has been the object of speculation since his premature and violent death. As multiple writers in this issue and elsewhere have noted, the primary engine of that speculation must be attributed to the obfuscations and misdirections that Ladoo himself created around his biography: a story that he was famously prone to treating as another one of his fictions and molding into different shapes to serve different purposes for different audiences.

Ladoo’s published work features only two novels: No Pain Like This Body (1972) and Yesterdays (1974)—both issued by Toronto’s House of Anansi Press. The books—especially the latter, published posthumously—had an uneven critical reception, and Ladoo’s oeuvre has been somewhat overlooked in recent decades. Yet he has remained a subject of fascination for some—Richard Fung calls them “devoted enthusiasts”—in no small part because, whatever else may be said about it, his work is singular, having few precursors or parallels within Caribbean literature. According to Christopher Laird’s recent biography, Equal to Mystery, Ladoo was entirely certain of the magnitude of his own literary talent, and he resolutely followed his own aesthetic path. The result—the two novels named above as well as a collection of unpublished stories that Laird describes and excerpts in the biography—is work that demands attention. In this issue’s discussion section, guest-edited by Andil Gosine, sx salon is pleased to participate alongside Laird’s volume and Fung’s new film, The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo, in the project of refocusing our collective gaze on Ladoo’s literary legacy. The section opens with Gosine’s intro and features essays on Ladoo’s work by Ramabai Espinet, Atreyee Phukan, Linzey Corridon, and Gabrielle Jamela Hosein. These are followed by Gosine’s dialogue with the artist lani maestro about her engagement with Ladoo’s fiction and is rounded out by Elias Rodriques’s review of Fung’s film.

The first item in our reviews section extends the engagement with Ladoo’s legacy, as Philip Nanton reviews Laird’s biography. This is followed by Catherine R. Peters’s and Geraldine Elizabeth Skeete’s assessments of noteworthy Caribbean fiction: Peters reviews Lauren Francis-Sharma’s novel Book of the Little Axe and Skeete reviews Lisa Allen-Agostini’s Home Home and Viviana Prado-Núñez’s The Art of White Roses. The section closes with Cornel Grey’s discussion of Nikoli A. Attai’s monograph Defiant Bodies: Making Queer Community in the Anglophone Caribbean. And our slim but satisfying creative section offers a joint poetic piece by Vladimir Lucien and John R. Lee, fittingly structured around the themes of mortality, celebrating those who have gone before us and considering what we will leave for those who will come after. And so I end here with notes in memoriam: for Funso Aiyejina, Professor Emeritus (at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine) and a distinguished poet, short-story writer, playwright, literary and cultural critic, and biographer, who passed in July; and for Elizabeth Nunez, Professor Emerita (at Hunter College) of English and the author of eleven novels, who passed in November, as this issue was in the final phases of production.

Enjoy, stay well, and let us know what you think: rlm@smallaxe.net.

Rachel L. Mordecai

---

Table of Contents

Reviews

“Laird’s Literary Odyssey” — Philip Nanton
Review of Christopher Laird, Equal to Mystery: In Search of Harold Sonny Ladoo (Leeds: Peepal Tree, 2023)

“‘We Is We’ in Lauren Francis-Sharma’s Book of the Little Axe” — Catherine R. Peters
Review of Lauren Francis-Sharma, Book of the Little Axe (New York: Grove, 2020)

“Home and Exile” — Geraldine Elizabeth Skeete
Review of Lisa Allen-Agostini, Home Home (London: Papillote, 2018), and Viviana Prado-Núñez, The Art of White Roses (London: Papillote, 2018)

“The Politics of Queer Belonging in the Caribbean” — Cornel Grey
Review of Nikoli A. Attai, Defiant Bodies: Making Queer Community in the Anglophone Caribbean (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2023)

Discussion

“This Body’s Pain, Yesterdays’ Joy”—Andil Gosine

“Just Like a Snake: A Portrait of Pa”—Ramabai Espinet

“‘Tola’ in ‘Toronto’: Diasporic (Be)Longing in Harold Sonny Ladoo”—Atreyee Phukan 

“Talking the Talk and Walking It Too: Queer World-Building in Harold Sonny Ladoo’s Yesterdays”—Linzey Corridon 

“‘Come and Let We Talk Gal’: Indo-Caribbean Women, Friendship, and Sex Talk in Harold Sonny Ladoo’s Yesterdays”—Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

“lani maestro’s No Pain Like This Body”—Andil Gosine, in dialogue with lani maestro

“A More Unknowable Past”—Elias Rodriques

Poetry & Prose

“shells/Littoral”—poems—Vladimir Lucien and John R. Lee