NEW YORK, NY.- For many readers in the United States, the literature of the Caribbean is a familiar one: Take Marlon James, Edwidge Danticat and Junot Díaz, for starters.
The Dutch Caribbean still seems an unknown territory, though, and Two Lines Press decided to publish On a Womans Madness, a novel by Dutch-Surinamese author Astrid Roemer, without quite knowing how it would be received.
When the book a fever dream of personal liberation set in midcentury Suriname, a former Dutch colony on South Americas Caribbean coast was shortlisted for the National Book Award for translated literature last year, it was a pleasant surprise for both the publisher and the author.
The jurys recognition of this brash, lush, experimental book about a queer Black Surinamese woman felt like a victory, said CJ Evans, Two Lines editor-in-chief, even if Roemer and the translator, Lucy Scott, didnt win. Days after the festivities, Roemer, 76, was still basking in the glow of her success, her finalist medallion around her neck. This is what Ill be wearing when they bury me, she joked.
This month, Roemers introduction to American readers continues with the release of her 2019 novel, Off-White, translated by Scott and David McKay, which echoes earlier themes the racial and sexual dynamics of Surinames multiethnic society but with a larger scope, examining several generations of a Surinamese family in the years between World War II and the 1960s.
Reading On a Womans Madness, originally published in Dutch in 1982, and Off-White back-to-back offers a look at Roemers evolution over four decades, Evans explained over email.
The experience also highlights the universality and the endurance of her work.
Her questions of race and misogyny and sexuality, and the global and personal effects of colonization, arent alien to the current literary landscape in the U.S., Evans said. But encountering these themes from the incredibly complex and diverse history of Suriname, I think, expands that conversation.
On a Womans Madness had a powerful effect when it first came out in the Netherlands; Roemer was embraced by university students and feminists, she said, who were trying to find tenderness in their own lives. But she was also labeled a lesbian which she wasnt and harassed. It was rough, dirty, painful, she said.
Noenka, the books protagonist, is fiercely independent, abandoning an abusive marriage for a series of love affairs, including an all-consuming passion for another woman. Noble and naked, I wanted to lead my own life, Noenka says in the book. I would not allow myself to be preyed upon.
In the years that followed, Roemers career took flight. By the late 1990s, she had settled in The Hague and produced a monumental trilogy she dubbed Impossible Motherland. She was riding high, she said, but also felt the need to escape what felt like an insular literary world in the Netherlands.
Roemer also felt personally targeted. She had been critical of Surinames military regime an outspokenness that, she believed, may have motivated the repeated break-ins at her house.
So Roemer slipped away, laying low in Scotland first in Skye and then Edinburgh and, later, across from a Belgian monastery. It was a period rife with misinformation about her whereabouts. According to Wikipedia, she traveled the world for 15 years with just her cat, laptop, and backpack. (She did take her cat.) In truth, she was working on several projects a memoir, a libretto, poetry, another novel. It was one of the best, most productive times in my life, she recalled.
When Roemer returned to the Netherlands years later, the literary establishment began to recognize the quality of her oeuvre, which had long been deemed too exotic for the Dutch audience, said Karin Amatmoekrim, a novelist and an essayist who was born in Suriname.
In 2016, Roemer was awarded the P. C. Hooft Award; in 2021, she won the Dutch Literary Award. She is the only Surinamese author to win either of the countrys two most prestigious honors.
The prizes acknowledged Roemers vital body of work, but also helped shine a light on a generation of Surinamese writers who had succumbed to exile, madness and suicide, according to Raoul de Jong, author of Jaguarman, a memoir tracing his fathers Surinamese roots.
There was a whole system in place to keep voices like hers silent, de Jong wrote in an email. The recognition, to me, is not only for Astrid, but also for all these writers who are no longer here but whose books still exist.
Roemer, who moved back to Suriname three years ago, appears to have come full circle: She first left the country in 1966 as a 19-year-old fledgling writer. After years of violence and turbulence, Suriname like Roemer seems to also have achieved a degree of peace. Even the new president has told me he likes my work, she said with a laugh.
Roemer often marvels at the extraordinary nature of her journey. When I published On a Womans Madness, I was a young woman and I didnt know how the literary scene in Holland would react, she said. But now that Im older, I feel like, Wow, its so strange and good that I had the courage to do that.
Revisiting the novel in translation has been a moving experience, she said. Its like it is blooming again now, she said. The English translation has given me some insight; the English words and sentences are telling me my story again.
The translations have also helped Roemers books forge new connections. Shes particularly thrilled to be claimed by other Caribbean writers. When On a Womans Madness came out last year, Caribbean people really noticed me, she said. They told me that this is ours.
She also feels an affinity with Black American writers such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, who were formative influences on her. Both writers came to the Netherlands in the early 80s and Roemer, a young journalist, was able to meet them. Indeed, On a Womans Madness can be seen in relation to Tar Baby and The Color Purple, which came out around the same time.
For de Jong, Roemer is part of a larger tradition of the Americas, and her work, and its recognition in the United States, helps place other Surinamese stories in a broader context.
I know that Im part of a much longer story, and by looking at the strength that people like Astrid have, I find strength, too, he said. Despite all opposing forces, she did manage to find us. And thats the great thing: In the end she won.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.