Roffey to sign copies of Passiontide

Monique Roffey, Trinidadian-British author and winner of the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, will sign copies of her newest novel, Passiontide, on June 28.

The book will be released in the UK on June 27. Roffey will sign copies at the Writers Centre, 14 Alcazar Street, St Clair, from 3.30-5.30 pm, a media release said.

Passiontide is Roffey’s first novel since The Mermaid of Black Conch, which won the 2021 Costa Book of the Year Award and has been translated into 16 languages. Passiontide is published by Harvill Secker (Penguin) in the UK.

Inspired by the 2016 murder of Japanese pannist Asami Nagakiya, whose body was found at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain, Passiontide follows the intersecting lives of four women responding to a shocking act of femicide on the fictional Caribbean island of St Colibri, the release said.

Jamaican poet and memoirist Safiya Sinclair, winner of the 2024 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, praised Passiontide, saying in the release, “Monique Roffey has written a firebrand womanist text, a battle cry, a rousing vision of change for a better, possible world.”

Speaking about the upcoming book signing, Roffey said in the release, “I’m so happy to be signing first edition copies of my new novel Passiontide at the Writers Centre. It means a lot to me to meet readers from Trinidad who’ve been reading my books for over a decade now.

"Passiontide is my seventh novel, and it’s both a crime novel and a protest novel, touching on themes of solidarity amongst women over issues of gender-based violence. Passiontide imagines the community as hero, as opposed to a single individual, and imagines activists as the majority in active protest, not the minority. Come down and chat and get your book signed. I’d be excited to meet you, too.”

Paper Based Bookshop, housed at the Writers Centre, will have copies of Passiontide and other books by Roffey for sale. All are invited; the event is free to the public.

The Writers Centre is the home of the Bocas Lit Fest, Paper Based Bookshop, and a branch of Full Bloom Coffee.