In Valmiki’s Daughter, critically acclaimed and best-selling novelist Shani Mootoo returns to the style — and some of the themes — she first explored in her breakout book, Cereus Blooms at Night. Mootoo introduces readers to the Krishnus, a well-to-do Trinidadian family firmly ensconced in the strict social hierarchy of the island. In this story of family secrets, patriarch Valmiki conceals a painful fact about his sexual identity while his youngest, the lively and intelligent Viveka, struggles to come to terms with a painful secret connected to her sexual identity. As Valmiki’s and Viveka’s secrets threaten to shake the foundations of the family, this beautifully written and hypnotically paced novel explores the complex interaction of race, gender, class, and sexuality in a closed society.

Two childhood friends--Harry, the half-caste son of a hard-working maid, and Rose, the daughter of his mother's employer--form a bond that drives them later in life to break free from the social manacles that have kept them apart, in a story of the dangers of love against all odds. By the author of Cereus Blooms at Night. Reprint.

Product Description: Celebrated novelist Shani Mootoo, author of the award-winning Cereus Blooms at Night, turns her hand to poetry in a nuanced and lively exploration of desire, identity and personal exile. In haunting and astonishing language, shot through with the speech and rhythms of her native Trinidad, Mootoo walks a breathtaking tightrope - between cultures and identities, between geographical locations, between memory and desire...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

When Mala, old and notoriously crazy, arrives at the Paradise Alms House, she is placed in the tender care of Tyler, a gay male nurse, and an extraordinary relationship begins to develop.

Product Description: Book by Mootoo, Shani (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)