Fiction. Afro-Caribbean Studies. When at age 51, Joshua Eclair--victim of a pygmalianism gone awry--emerges from amnesia in a hospital in Montreal, he must explore what makes him want to erase his identity, and must undertake the process of exorcising what has brought him to this pass. This is the gripping story of a man's search for sanity set in the fictional Caribbean Isabella Island and the various places Joshua has fled to: Montreal, New York, Tallahassee, London, Paris and Madrid. This is a finely accomplished novel about a very modern predicament: the malformed dysfunctional identity in the global village. H. Nigel Thomas immigrated to Canada from the Caribbean Island of St. Vincent. He has been a teacher with the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal, and professor of American literature at Universite Laval. He resides in the Montreal suburb of Greenfield Park.

Author City: Montreal, QC CAN

H. Nigel Thomas was born in St. Vincent and now lives in Montreal. After a stint as a high school teacher in Montreal, Thomas was for many years a professor of US literature at Université Laval, before retiring. He is the author of three novels, Spirits in the Dark (shortlisted for the QWF Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction), BEHIND THE FACE OF WINTER, and RETURN TO ARCADIA; the story collections How Loud Can the Village Cock Crow and LIVES: WHOLE AND OTHERWISE; and a book of poetry, Moving through Darkness. Thomas has also published two works of nonfiction, From Folklore to Fiction: A Study of Fold Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel, and WHY WE WRITE: CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN CANADIAN POETS AND NOVELISTS.