Play Book Tag discussion

Diego Garcia by Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams - 3* - My Review

This cowritten novel is both a story of literary collaboration and social commentary on a lesser-known episode of history. The two protagonists, Damaris and Oliver, are writers living in Edinburgh in 2014. They meet Diego Garcia, who has named himself after a (real) island in the Chagos Archipelago. Diego tells the pair of his Mauritian mother’s forced expulsion from her home in 1973. She and the other residents of Diego Garcia were deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles so that a joint US/UK military base could be built on the island. In conjunction with Diego’s story, we also learn of Oliver’s brother’s suicide after a stay in a mental health facility.

I appreciated learning more about the history of Diego Garcia. It inspired me to go looking for more information. However, the structure of this book is a hot mess. The narrative is presented in a combination of formats, including interviews, emails, diary entries, and what appear to be Wikipedia excerpts. The styles are also mixed, expressed in lengthy run-on sentences, dual columns on a single page, and short choppy fragments. It is filled with obscure (to me) cultural references.

I found the varieties in formats distracting. Other than being “artsy” there seemed to be little point. I can appreciate the desire to bring to light a lesser-known example of colonialism at a time when these types of takeovers were supposedly in the distant past, but it is told in such a disjointed way that it was difficult to enjoy the reading experience.