British - Writer | 1965 -
While I am most at home in London, I cannot really label myself as either British or Trinidadian. I write in the English language and live in the U.K. I find it hard to say that I am an entirely British writer, especially when I supported Trinidad in the 2006 World Cup and also support the West Indies cricket team.
Monique Roffey
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I was an observant but dreamy child. I had a lazy eye and wild curls.
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At the age of 62, my father died of cancer - it was much too soon. My mother never remarried or got over it, never even thought of another man.
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Apart from writing books, my 40s have been about pursuing personal growth. Whatever were the mistakes of my earlier life, I've been committed to a pause, a regroup. I don't want to make the same mistakes in the future.
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Born on an island, I could swim before I could walk, thrown many times into swimming pools and warm transparent Caribbean waters: sink or swim, that was my first lesson. While I'm not a natural athlete, I'm still a strong swimmer and feel a great affinity with the sea.
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What I always knew about my parents was that they were in love, and this love had a fizz. It was exciting to be their child, to be around them. There was a dynamism between them, a charge.
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The romantic idealism of my youth has been replaced with realism and hard work at what I love.
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My parents had a long and eventful marriage and were always a bit like movie stars to me when they were young.
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Trinidad's language is a fusion of English, African, and French, and so we have our own words and even our own dictionary. Steupse is a common local word, and it's the onomatopoeic word for the sound people make to show disapproval, or to show they are vexed, when they suck their teeth together.
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Trinidadians love speaking their own English; it's full of poetic forms and can be playful and lyrical and comical. Trinidadians are verbal acrobats, and I love being on the island just to hear the people speak.
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'The White Woman on the Green Bicycle' is a love story mapped onto an unfolding political tragedy: that of the failure of the Independence era in Trinidad.
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Long-term heterosexual monogamy is still the dominant model: men and women still want to pair for a long period of time.
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