- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Published: 6/3/25
- IBSN: 9781636142272
- e-IBSN: 9781636142289
- Genre: Fiction
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Paradise Once
A historical novel that brings to life the resiliency of the indigenous Taíno people in the Caribbean whose culture was virtually destroyed within two generations of their “discovery” by Christopher Columbus in 1492.
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What people are saying…
“Olive Senior’s Paradise Once is a powerful historical novel that vividly portrays a crucial period in the lives of the Taíno people. Senior’s work weaves history and mythology, capturing the genesis and heart of Caribbean culture and showcasing her incomparable talent.”
—Edwidge Danticat, author of Krik? Krak!
“In Paradise Once, Olive Senior achieves what no other Caribbean novelist has done before—capture in a poignantly detailed story the human and environmental catastrophe of the early years of the Columbian encounter. Exquisitely researched and steeped in the language and worldview of the Taíno people, this is a historical novel like no other, one grounded in Senior’s complete immersion into a world just becoming aware of its imminent disappearance, a world she fiercely and vividly brings back to life in its richness and magic.”
—Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, author of Creole Religions of the Caribbean
“Olive Senior gifts us an incisive view of our Taíno world at contact. I welcome this emerging literature . . . we need it.”
—José Barreiro (Hatuey), author of Taíno
Description
Paradise Once is a sweeping historical novel that brings to life the resiliency of the indigenous Taíno people of the Caribbean, whose culture was virtually destroyed within two generations of their “discovery” by Christopher Columbus in 1492.
In 1513 in Cuba, an entire village is wiped out by Spanish forces for no discernible reason. Had the villagers offended their spiritual guides—the cemíes—as one faction claimed, by incorporating foreign practices?
Four youthful survivors escape the massacre—three indigenous and one African runaway. They start off on separate perilous paths, not knowing they have been chosen by the cemíes to carry out a sacred mission—to ensure the survival of a Sacred Bundle that will enable a Taíno revival in future generations. But first, an epic spiritual battle must be played out.
In this love song to the Caribbean, Olive Senior authentically evokes the physical and spiritual worlds of its First Peoples and the survivors—indigenous and African—who will become the resistance fighters known in history as Cimarrones or Maroons.
- Subjects: Caribbean Interest, Literary Fiction
- Tags: Olive Senior, Paradise Once
Book Details
Author
OLIVE SENIOR is the award-winning author of twenty books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s literature. She was the Poet Laureate of Jamaica from 2021 to 2024, and has received numerous awards and honors, including honorary doctorates from the University of the West Indies (Jamaica) and York University (Canada), the Gold Medal of the Institute of Jamaica, Canada’s Matt Cohen Award for Lifetime Achievement, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Senior’s work is widely translated, and is taught in schools and other institutions worldwide; her writing is also the subject of numerous critical essays. She splits her time between Toronto, Canada and Kingston, Jamaica.