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Oonya Kempadoo

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Oonya Kempadoo


Born
in Guyana
January 01, 1966

Genre


Oonya Kempadoo is a writer who was born in Sussex, England in 1966 of Guyanese parents. She was brought up in Guyana and has since lived in Europe and various islands in the Caribbean.

Her first novel, Buxton Spice, was published to great acclaim in 1998, and was nominated for the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her second book, Tide Running (Picador, 2001), set in Plymouth, Tobago, is the story of young brothers Cliff and Ossie.

Oonya Kempadoo has studied art in Amsterdam and has lived in Trinidad, St. Lucia, Tobago, and now lives in Grenada.

She was named a Great Talent for the Twenty-First Century by the Orange Prize judges and is a winner of the Casa de las Americas Prize.


Average rating: 3.3 · 675 ratings · 122 reviews · 13 distinct worksSimilar authors
Buxton Spice

3.18 avg rating — 244 ratings — published 1998 — 16 editions
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Tide Running

3.40 avg rating — 136 ratings — published 2001 — 14 editions
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All Decent Animals

3.08 avg rating — 107 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions
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Naniki

3.45 avg rating — 31 ratings3 editions
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El árbol de los sentidos

3.83 avg rating — 6 ratings2 editions
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A Árvores dos Sentidos

3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1998
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Mar De Fondo

0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings2 editions
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Mar de fondo

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All decent animals

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All Decent Animals: A Novel...

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More books by Oonya Kempadoo…
Quotes by Oonya Kempadoo  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“When she can’t sleep, she writes. All she remembers is his words. It will soon be dawn, with fire-stoked horses thundering to the humming sky of crickets. I will see you run. And I will run with you. That morning, while Ata ate a dripping mango over the sink, she felt him come up behind her and touch the small of her back, light as a current of air. He kissed the side of her neck, inhaled the steam of bitter cocoa, boiling with bay leaves, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and said it reminded him of his childhood. “You are from the islands,” she said. But then he was gone.”
Oonya Kempadoo, All Decent Animals

“Just visiting from Trinidad, we could have never seen the darkness of this island. The strength of it overpowered and silenced you. Only after moving here did the calm become unsettling. Traces of resentment glowing under the skin of proud faces, in the gait of mobile bodies. The house, our holiday haven from Trinidad city life, seduced us into its womb, promising peace of mind, crime-free living, and the blue Caribbean Sea. Once Peter’s work in Trinidad had finished, we moved. And now the haven sheltered us from things unknown and deep. Always mothering, giving space for mistakes and meditation, watching over our sleep.”
Oonya Kempadoo, Tide Running

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