Awards
- Short-listed for National Book Award for Translated Literature 1997
- Short-listed for National Book Award for Translated Literature 1997 (United States)
- Winner of Dutch Literature Prize 2021
- Winner of P. C. Hooft Award 2016
Overview
On a Woman's Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her own choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America's tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by romance and new freedoms, but also forever haunted by her past and society's expectations. Strikingly translated by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer's classic queer novel is a tentpole of European and post-colonial literature. And amid tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers, it is also a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey. Roemer, the first Surinamese winner of the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize, carves out postcolonial Suriname in barbed, resonant fragments. Who is Noenka? Roemer asks us. ""I'm Noenka,"" she responds resolutely, ""which means Never Again.""
Full Product Details
Author: Astrid Roemer ,
Lucy Scott
Publisher: Tilted Axis Press
Imprint: Tilted Axis Press
ISBN: 9781917126076
ISBN 10: 1917126077
Pages: 284
Publication Date: 15 October 2024
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
"""Roemer makes her English-language debut with this classic of queer Black literature... As Roemer pushes at the boundaries of the senses, she melds biting postcolonial social commentary with a lush dreamscape. Scott's translation is a gift to English-language readers."""
“Roemer makes her English-language debut with this classic of queer Black literature… As Roemer pushes at the boundaries of the senses, she melds biting postcolonial social commentary with a lush dreamscape. Scott’s translation is a gift to English-language readers.”
Author Information
In 1966, at the age of 19, Astrid Roemer emigrated from Suriname to the Netherlands. She identifies herself as a cosmopolitan writer. Exploring themes of race, gender, family, and identity, her poetic, unconventional prose stands in the tradition of authors such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. She was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize in 2016, and the three-yearly Dutch Literature Prize (Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren) in 2021. Lucy Scott is a translator of Caribbean literature written in Dutch and French. Her short story and essay translations thus far have appeared in Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee Review and in Wilderness House Literary Review. She's the translator of Astrid Roemer's On a Woman's Madness (Two Lines Press, 2022) and Off-White (Two Lines Press, forthcoming 2024).
