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Love's Promise
“These stirring stories of love, young and mature, of yearning and disappointment, of companionship and independence, place girls and women at the center. They are stories for our time, evoking a feminism that has as much to do with the quotidian life as with radical social transformation.”
-Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
“Palmer Adisa’s writing is generous, her prose delicate and delicious, her stories always quietly surprising. This book fulfills its promise.”
-Nalo Hopkinson, author of Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, Sister Mine and many more
“Opal Palmer’s collection reminds us that at the core of every human being love must come first. In difficult times we cannot be reminded of this enough.”
-Ana Castillo, author of Black Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me.
“Love’s Promise brings vividly into focus the enduring, sometimes shocking, truths about love through the experiences of characters living in rural areas on a tropical island.”
-Zee Edgell, author of Beka Lamb and Time and the River
“The stories in Love’s Promise make an invaluable contribution to Caribbean literature, but also to global literature. The impulses, temptations, losses and triumphs of Opal Palmer Adisa’s characters are universal.”
-Shanthi Sekaran, author of Lucky Boy
“A master storyteller, Opal Palmer Adisa’s latest collection of short stories, Love’s Promise, is enchanting, refreshing, and soulful. Its familiar themes—friendship, woman-bonding, love, home, motherhood, passion--remind us in these treacherous
times of life’s treasures. Joy and pleasure are elusive but still possible!”
-Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies and English at Spelman College and featured feminist in the 2013 PBS documentary Women Who Make America
-Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
“Palmer Adisa’s writing is generous, her prose delicate and delicious, her stories always quietly surprising. This book fulfills its promise.”
-Nalo Hopkinson, author of Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, Sister Mine and many more
“Opal Palmer’s collection reminds us that at the core of every human being love must come first. In difficult times we cannot be reminded of this enough.”
-Ana Castillo, author of Black Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me.
“Love’s Promise brings vividly into focus the enduring, sometimes shocking, truths about love through the experiences of characters living in rural areas on a tropical island.”
-Zee Edgell, author of Beka Lamb and Time and the River
“The stories in Love’s Promise make an invaluable contribution to Caribbean literature, but also to global literature. The impulses, temptations, losses and triumphs of Opal Palmer Adisa’s characters are universal.”
-Shanthi Sekaran, author of Lucky Boy
“A master storyteller, Opal Palmer Adisa’s latest collection of short stories, Love’s Promise, is enchanting, refreshing, and soulful. Its familiar themes—friendship, woman-bonding, love, home, motherhood, passion--remind us in these treacherous
times of life’s treasures. Joy and pleasure are elusive but still possible!”
-Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies and English at Spelman College and featured feminist in the 2013 PBS documentary Women Who Make America
126 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 1, 2017
4 people want to read
About the author
Opal Palmer Adisa
34 books22 followersOpal Palmer Adisa (born 1954) is a Jamaica-born award-winning poet, novelist, performance artist and educator. Anthologised in over 100 publications, she has been a regular performer of her work internationally.
Since 1993, Opal Palmer Adisa has taught literature and served as Chair of the Ethnic Studies/Cultural Diversity Program at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Dr. Adisa has two masters degrees from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. She has previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses at California College of the Arts, Stanford University, University of Berkeley, and San Francisco State University. In the spring of 2010, she became a member of the teaching staff at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), St Croix Campus, and also served as editor of The Caribbean Writer, UVI’s famous journal of Caribbean literature, for 2 years.
An important element of her poetry is the use of nation language, about which she has said: "I have to credit [Louise] Bennett for granting me permission, so to speak, to write in Nation Language, because it was her usage that allowed me to see the beauty of our language. Moreover, there are just some things that don’t have the same sense of intimacy or color if not said in Nation language.... I use nation language when it is the only way and the best way to get my point across, to say what I mean from the center of my navel. But I also use it, to interrupt and disrupt standard English as s reminder to myself that I have another tongue, but also to jolt readers to listen and read more carefully, to glean from the language the Caribbean sensibilities that I am always pushing, sometimes subtly, other times more forcefully. Nation language allows me to infuse the poem with all of the smells and colors of home.
(from Wikipedia)
Since 1993, Opal Palmer Adisa has taught literature and served as Chair of the Ethnic Studies/Cultural Diversity Program at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Dr. Adisa has two masters degrees from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. She has previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses at California College of the Arts, Stanford University, University of Berkeley, and San Francisco State University. In the spring of 2010, she became a member of the teaching staff at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), St Croix Campus, and also served as editor of The Caribbean Writer, UVI’s famous journal of Caribbean literature, for 2 years.
An important element of her poetry is the use of nation language, about which she has said: "I have to credit [Louise] Bennett for granting me permission, so to speak, to write in Nation Language, because it was her usage that allowed me to see the beauty of our language. Moreover, there are just some things that don’t have the same sense of intimacy or color if not said in Nation language.... I use nation language when it is the only way and the best way to get my point across, to say what I mean from the center of my navel. But I also use it, to interrupt and disrupt standard English as s reminder to myself that I have another tongue, but also to jolt readers to listen and read more carefully, to glean from the language the Caribbean sensibilities that I am always pushing, sometimes subtly, other times more forcefully. Nation language allows me to infuse the poem with all of the smells and colors of home.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 18, 2025
In this collection of stories by Ms. Adisa, pure love from the heart and soul shines through more often than anything that can be considered lustful. In other words, romance.
Now, a word of warning. While all of the stories are excellent, the dialogue is written phonetically as according to the dialects of the region, and this might take a little longer to finish reading them.
Now, a word of warning. While all of the stories are excellent, the dialogue is written phonetically as according to the dialects of the region, and this might take a little longer to finish reading them.
Displaying 1 of 1 review