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The Island of Forgetting

By: Jasmine Sealy
Narrated by: Varia Williams
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Summary

‘Inventive, excellent … a pure pleasure to read’ THE TIMES

In this compelling debut, an unknowable legacy passes through generations of one family living on the beautiful island of Barbados.

In this compelling debut, an unknowable legacy passes through generations of one family living on the beautiful island of Barbados.

There is Iapetus, a lonely soul haunted by the memory of his father; his son Atlas, dreaming of a life far removed from his reality; Atlas’s daughter Calypso, struggling to find her place in an unforgiving society; and her son Nautilus, grappling with various parts of a complex identity.

Each longs to escape their circumstances but find themselves trapped by a history found only in whispers and half-remembered fragments. And with every passing decade, another generation must contend with the same question: how can the things we don’t know define our futures?

Spanning fifty years, The Island of Forgetting is a powerful saga of family and hope that marks the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

THE TIMES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH

©2022 Jasmine Sealy (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

The Island of Forgetting works on many levels: as a family saga, as Greek myth retold and as a portrait of Barbados through the 20th century. This excellent debut is also a pure pleasure to read’ The Times Book of the Month

‘A brilliant richly absorbing tale on the repercussions of hidden familial legacies. A deeply evocative, stirring work’ IRENOSEN OKOJIE, Caine Prize-Winning author of Nudibranch

‘Clever and absorbing, this debut is a treat’Times’s 100 Best Books of the Summer

‘Jasmine Sealy’s The Island of Forgetting is an epic novel of great elegance and empathy. Her nuanced portrait of love, loss and identity on a small Caribbean island is well-poised to become a classic of the Caribbean literary canon’ CHERIE JONES, Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlisted author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

The Island of Forgetting is an engrossing saga of love, family and the undying past – gorgeous at the sentence level and sweeping in both depth and scope. Jasmine Sealy is one of the most exciting and powerful new voices in fiction, and with this stunning debut she has crafted a moving world of a book, polyphonic and sprinkled throughout with fire’ OMAR EL AKKAD, author of What Strange Paradise

‘A stunning debut.The Island of Forgetting is a bold, passionate, and razor-sharp novel, exquisitely written and deeply moving. With great empathy and nuance, Jasmine Sealy explores family bonds and secret legacies and the scarifies we make in their name. I couldn’t put this book down. Jasmine Sealy is an astonishing, fierce new talent in Canadian fiction’ AYELET TSABARI

What listeners say about The Island of Forgetting

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I loved this raw expression. I was transported.

People familiar with the island will identify intimately with one or more of the characters. The book not only highlights key aspects of island life but also the impact of tourism. An excellent read.

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Beautiful story

Beautiful story of generational trauma and joy. Had me hooked from start to end. Poetic yet relatable. A joy to listen to.

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