Novel
Song for Mumu
Lindsay Barrett · 1967
Synopsis
On an unnamed Caribbean island, Meela, a peasant's daughter, loves Scully, a country boy who sinks into madness after entering the service of a white planter, and misfortune falls upon the family. Meela and her daughter Mumu then leave the green lands of the interior for the city, where they know poverty, and Mumu seeks to learn who she is and where her father came from. A chorus of river women comments on their fate.
Context
The novel was written from April 1962 to October 1966, in Frankfurt, Paris and then Accra, and appeared in London from Longmans in 1967, in one hundred and fifty-four pages, under a cover drawn by its author, who gave readings from it alongside the writers of the Caribbean Artists Movement. In Caribbean Quarterly, a critic likened its handling of myth and ritual to that of Wilson Harris and Alejo Carpentier. Howard University Press published the American edition in 1974, and Peepal Tree Press reissued it in Leeds in 2026.
Who it is for
In English, one hundred and fifty pages of poetic prose carried by hymns, work songs and rituals: one must accept song rather than plot.
Prizes and reception
Noticed on publication by Edward Baugh and Marina Maxwell, and regarded by Philip Royster as a success of style, it appears on the Caribbean list of the Bocas festival.
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