Toulum recommended for better family life

“A story of resilience.” This was how Reynold Bassant editor, colleague and friend of author Willi Chen described the novel Toulum – A House for Matilda at its launch on April 26 at Naparima Bowl, San Fernando. Bassant enticed the handful of readers present with his candid review of the novel." Toulum reminds us that being resilient is a quality in the human spirit that is not ours alone to claim.

"It is a story that readers would remember, whether for its lush descriptions of the landscape or the reality of pursuing a dream." Bassant urged readers not to fall pray to biases of racial stereotyping while reading the novel.

"If you read Toulum with a single-story bias in your mind, you could be trapped in the stereotype. In fact, it teaches us how to recognise our own condition, to understand that condition and have compassion for others. So beware of the single story as it denies people of their dignity, and when we recognise they are not all alike a piece of paradise is restored to those people."Basant lamented, the novel left him feeling nostalgic that TT was losing it's "original flavour, its substance in the way we act and react with others."

Chen, who gave a very brief overview of the novel, explained that the story, while funny in some of its dialect and scenarios, highlights issues facing TT's two major races – the Africans and the East Indians – and their quest to find a commonplace in society.

Chen recalled how food was a major source for races of the era of yesteryear to form bonds and share in each others’ culture. "At lunchtime, we would exchange foods, my meatball for bake and smoked herring, sada roti and baghi or dhal – items of cohesion. Today, the cohesive agent for better family life is Toulum. This sticky confectionery is a metaphor."