NANIKI

NANIKI: Of the Sea is a beautiful literary novella of extreme relevance and resonance, in the tradition of Marlon James and Jamaica Kincaid, by acclaimed author Oonya Kempadoo.

NANIKI (“active / spirit” in the Taino language) is a mytho-poetic novella that honors the Indigenous roots of the Caribbean. It is a cross-cultural, fantastical and futuristic oceanic tale, set in the Caribbean Sea Basin. The narrative follows co-protagonists Amana and Skelele, evolved sea beings of the Anthropocene with Taino and African ancestry, through an archipelagic journey. They are in search of (and in conflict with) their mythological, historical and ontological purpose. NANIKI is a lyrical tale concerned with the condition and fate of our world that invites the reader to meld with the environment while at the same time taking a birds eye view of our world and what we are doing to it, with the sea in particular as a primordial and lifegiving force.

Oonya Kempadoo is a UK, Guyanese, Grenadian citizen, has worked and lived in various Caribbean islands and currently resides in Grenada and Montreal. Her first novel, Buxton Spice (Beacon Press, 1998), was long-listed for the Orange Prize and translated into six languages. Her second, Tide Running (Farrar Strauss & Giroux, USA 2003), won a Casa De Las Americas 2002 prize and Kempadoo was named a “Great Talent for the 21st Century” by Orange Prize judges. All Decent Animals (Farrar Strauss & Giroux, USA 2013) was #6 on Oprah Winfrey's Summer Reads. Oonya was a US Fulbright Scholar for 2013-2014 and works as a consultant, a researcher and educator, focusing on social development and cross-disciplinary dialogue.