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Dangerous Freedom
This radical and moving historical novel weaves fact with fiction to reveal “the great deception” exercised by the powerful on a mixed race child born in the late 18th century and brought up in the London home of England’s Lord Chief Justice.
Dido Belle was the daughter of an African-born slave and the sea-faring nephew of Lord Mansfield. She was freed only on Mansfield’s death and became Elizabeth D’Aviniere on her marriage. Scott imagines Elizabeth’s adult world where she reflects on her disturbed childhood and fears for her own children’s safety at risk from slave catchers. Above all, she yearns for her lost mother. Why did she no longer write? Had she, too, been recaptured? The novel builds to a powerful denouement as the events of Elizabeth’s past engage with the traumas of her present.
Dido Belle was the daughter of an African-born slave and the sea-faring nephew of Lord Mansfield. She was freed only on Mansfield’s death and became Elizabeth D’Aviniere on her marriage. Scott imagines Elizabeth’s adult world where she reflects on her disturbed childhood and fears for her own children’s safety at risk from slave catchers. Above all, she yearns for her lost mother. Why did she no longer write? Had she, too, been recaptured? The novel builds to a powerful denouement as the events of Elizabeth’s past engage with the traumas of her present.
290 pages, Paperback
Published May 11, 2021
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About the author
Lawrence Scott
49 books10 followersLawrence Scott is a prize-winning Caribbean novelist and short-story writer from Trinidad & Tobago.
He has been awarded and short-listed for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book and Best First Book in Canada & the Caribbean, twice Long-Listed for The International Impac Dublin Literary Award, The Whitbread Prize and The Booker Prize. He was awarded the Tom-Gallon Short-Story Award.
His work has stimulated critical work into the post-colonial novel’s use of magic-realism, carnival, calypso, her/history, storytelling, dialect/standard narratives, identity, landscape, the body, race, religion and homo/sexuality.
His work has been performed on the BBC. His poetry has been anthologised in Europe and the Caribbean. He travels frequently in North and South America and the Caribbean and has read, lectured and talked about his work internationally.
Books
Biography
Critical Essays
Bibliography
TV & Radio
He was Writer-in-Residence at the University of the West Indies and was a judge for the 2006 Commonwealth Short-Story Competition.
He is A Senior Research Fellow of The Academy at Unversity of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) for Arts, Letters, Culture and Public Affairs 2006-2009.
He lives and works in both Trinidad and England, writing and teaching literature as well as creative writing at The City Literary Institute in London, The Arvon Foundation and City & Islington Sixth Form College where he taught for many years.
He has been awarded and short-listed for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book and Best First Book in Canada & the Caribbean, twice Long-Listed for The International Impac Dublin Literary Award, The Whitbread Prize and The Booker Prize. He was awarded the Tom-Gallon Short-Story Award.
His work has stimulated critical work into the post-colonial novel’s use of magic-realism, carnival, calypso, her/history, storytelling, dialect/standard narratives, identity, landscape, the body, race, religion and homo/sexuality.
His work has been performed on the BBC. His poetry has been anthologised in Europe and the Caribbean. He travels frequently in North and South America and the Caribbean and has read, lectured and talked about his work internationally.
Books
Biography
Critical Essays
Bibliography
TV & Radio
He was Writer-in-Residence at the University of the West Indies and was a judge for the 2006 Commonwealth Short-Story Competition.
He is A Senior Research Fellow of The Academy at Unversity of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) for Arts, Letters, Culture and Public Affairs 2006-2009.
He lives and works in both Trinidad and England, writing and teaching literature as well as creative writing at The City Literary Institute in London, The Arvon Foundation and City & Islington Sixth Form College where he taught for many years.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 8, 2021
As sad and unjust Dido Elizabeth Bell's story was, it did not "grab" me as I hoped it would. The story is told through Elizabeth's eyes as she is dying of, I presume, consumption. Her fears for the safety of her sons from kidnappers, who would sell them as slaves, is ever present as she reflects also on the loss of her mother, the "property" of her Scottish father, and the questionable privilege of being raised in the home of England's Lord Chief Justice, her father's uncle. Denied most of the rights that her father's heritage should allow her because she is a mulatto, but treated as a sheltered companion to her cousin, she isn't a slave, yet isn't free. In 18th century England, there was no real place in society for a noblewoman of mixed race. It was an interesting story, which has been depicted in the feature film, "Belle."
Displaying 1 of 1 review