Divina Trace

by Robert Antoni

A mysterious child, half human, half-frog, is born on the island of Corpus Christi in the West Indies. Its mother becomes Magdalena Divina, patron saint of the island, worshipped by Hindu and Muslim Cast Indians, Africans, Catholics and indigenous Indians alike. The frogchild, allegedly drowned in a pot of callaloo by the wife of the man who sired it, becomes the focus of an evolving legend as Johnny Domingo hears this story, about his family from different people and tries, impossibly, to piece it together into one coherent and true account.

Genres: Fiction

436 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Robert Antoni was born in the United States in 1958, and he carries three passports: US, Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas. His fictional world is the island of Corpus Christi, and to create it he draws upon his two hundred years or family history In Trinidad and Tobago and his upbringing in the Bahamas. His first novel, Divina Trace, was published in 1991 by the Overlook Press in New York1 and by Quartet in London. It received the Commonwealth Writers Prize, an NEA, James Michener and Orowitz fellowships. His second novel, Blessed is the Fruit, was published by Henry Holt in 1997 and in London by Faber & Faber. His story collection, My Grandmother’s Erotic Folktales was published in London by Faber & Faber in 20OO and in New York by Grove/Atlantic in 2001. My Grandmother’s Erotic Folktales appeared in French translation (Du Rocher)-, and it has been translated into Finnish (LIKE) Spanish (Anagrama). His most recent novel, Carnival, was published in New York by Grove/Atlantic (Black Cat) in 2OO5 and it has appeared in French translation (Denoel) and in Finnish (LIKEO). Carnival will appear in Spanish (Anagrama) and it will be published in London by Faber g Faber to coincide a reprinting of Divina
Trace in 2006. Carnival was short—listed for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2006. Antoni’s short fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, The Paris Review, Ploughshares and other periodicals and it was included in the Editors Choice for 1985, The Oxford Book or Caribbean Short Stories in as well as other anthologies. He was awarded the Aga Khan prize for Fiction in 1999 by the Paris Review, where he is a Contributing Editor. He is also a Senior Editor or Conjunctions where he was co-editor, along with Bradford Morrow, of an Anthology or Caribbean writing titled Archipelago (Conjunctions 27). Antoni has given upwards or a hundred readings around the United States and the Caribbean, in addition to the ICA in London and the Harbourfront in Toronto. He holds an MA from Johns Hopkins University, an MFA and a PhD from the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. He is a former Associate Professor or creative writing and Caribbean 1iterature at the university or Miami where he taught for nine years until flay 2001. While at the university of Miami he acted as Associate Director of their Caribbean Writers Summer Institute. He presently 1ives in New York and he teaches Fiction Writing at Columbia University.

Reviews

[Erin Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read in a long, long time. That said, don't read it if you don't have the stomach for descriptions of graphic sex and violence, medical procedures and phenomena, black magic, narratives peppered with a monkey dialect you won't understand, challenges to your Christian beliefs and feelings about the British empire. Are you afraid of the word "pussy"? Then don't read this!!! BUT it was an amazing story about the attempted canonization of a revered Catholic/obeah saint in Trinidad, full of irony, allegory, magic spells, miracles, tragedies, apparitions, a frogchild and a whore/nun named Magdalena.

[Miguel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Divina Trace is simply one of the greatest works of literature every written. Following in the tradition of Garcia Marquez, Joyce, and Faulkner, Antoni writes himself into the literary canon with reckless abandon. Antoni's work is, in a sense, self-congratulatory (to put it mildly) as he takes prose to its absolute upper limits. Antoni's ego is well deserved, however, as his complicated prose (while maybe hard to follow) is absolutely beautiful. Read the book, engage with it, and live within it. You won't be disappointed.

[quasialidia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 48/100ths captivated me. I loved the narrative layers of voice and the use of multiple discordent focalizers. I was also captivated by the mythology of the frog boy. The rest was a slog and bog of pomo nods, metatext, and unneed disruption and purposeful opacity. The shift of interest from the frog-boy to Magdalena was interesting, and there were some very interesting narrative and textual moves; and the last chapter was good; but none were good enough to redeme the lost feeling that the centre chapter destroyed or the interest the 'circluar' structure wore out.

[Mister Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrendous!

As previously posted, the only good thing about this novel is the page mirror in the center.

The writer was trying too hard to create some aberrant stream of consciousness, artsy fartsy, intellectual post-colonial fictional discourse and literary work: he succeeded; I had to read this in a post-colonial Carribean grad course where it was embraced by a high-browed prof.

A wretched work! I learned to know crap is to avoid reading crap.

[Libby]

worst book ever...it does include a gimicky mirror in the middle...

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius!