Shani MootooWhen she was barely six, Shani Mootoo discovered that words spelt trouble. "I had told my grandmother I was sexually molested," she recalls. She was not only disbelieved but reprimanded for "dirty thoughts". Her parents were then in Dublin and she was being raised by her grandparents in Trinidad.Words got her into more trouble when at 10 she shared her poem with the family: Man loves manMan loves woman Woman loves woman. "I wasn't making a statement as such," Mootoo sighs, "I wasn't going to tell the world that I was a lesbian. I started off loving writing as a child. But the words I wrote made the adults angry and sad." So Mootoo, Indian by descent, Irish by birth, Caribbean by breeding and Canadian by nationality, took to making videos and painting: "Unlike words, paintings can be ambiguous forms of expression."The words never went away though: "For many years I kept a journal, chronicling my pain, anger and also forgiveness." A friend took the journal to Press Gang, a small but respected publisher of feminist literature. But Mootoo did not want to publish her journals. Instead she put out a collection of short stories, Out on Main Street. Its success led to Cereus Blooms at Night (just published in India by Penguin). Anger, pain, retribution and reconciliation are the themes of Mootoo's first novel. Her formidable story-telling power is blessed by her luminous prose. The language is rich in imagery, sounds and, particularly, smells of the Caribbean. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}"I really, really love scents," Mootoo says, "one of the favourite scents is the stuff from the ocean, along the shorelines - the seaweed and the crabs and insects... that are dying out and dying. And that smell, I always think - it's really the transference of life to death and back to life."Survival and exaltation in the teeth of abuse is not only the theme of her novel but her life: "I am a survivor of incest and I am a lesbian." Mootoo's next novel revolves around a 60-year-old dutiful Indian wife from the West Indies. While visiting Canada, she meets a man who worked as a gardener for her family back home. "The distance that existed between them is bridged by the way Canada operates," Mootoo says, "She is not recognised in Canada and he is not the invisible man he used to be in Trinidad." The friendship leads to romance. Should the woman return to her husband? Mootoo is still figuring that out. Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 2, 1998--- ENDS ---
