Papillote Press is delighted to bring back into print the acclaimed Caribbean classic novel The Orchid House by the important Dominican writer and politician Phyllis Shand Allfrey.
This edition comes with a new and insightful introduction by the Dominican scholar Dr Schuyler Esprit. In her conclusion Esprit writes, “The most endearing and significant appeal of this edition is that it returns Allfrey and The Orchid House to their rightful place in the annals of Caribbean literary history, as an authentic product of Dominica offered to the world.”
Professor Lisa Paravisini-Gebert, Allfrey’s biographer, also endorses its significance: “Beauty and politics – the two strands in Allfrey’s love for her island – come together in The Orchid House to inspire one of the most original texts in Caribbean literature.”
Phyllis Shand Allfrey was born in Dominica in 1908 and died here in 1986. As a young woman she lived in New York and London, but returned to Dominica in the early 1950s.
She co-founded the Dominica Labour Party and was a Minister in the West Indies Federation. The Orchid House is her only completed novel. Her short stories (It Falls into Place) and collected poems (Love for an Island) are also published by Papillote Press.
The Orchid House tell the story of three white sisters who return to their Caribbean island home to find their family living in poverty and mental anguish. Each sister responds to the family’s plight in different ways — seeking change through romance or politics or money.
Intensely autobiographical, The Orchid House – which is set in Dominica between the two world wars – describes a colonial society in decay as seen through the eyes of the sisters’ childhood nurse, Lally: “Beauty and disease, beauty and sickness, beauty and horror: that was the island.”
Dominicans may remember the film of the book that was shot here in 1990 – with an international cast, including British actors Diana Quick and Elizabeth Hurley, and Jamaican Madge Sinclair, who played Lally.
It was directed by the Trinidadian Horace Ové, and many Dominicans were involved in the film-making. The four-part series was shown on British
TV in 1991 and is now available as a DVD. The book was first published in 1953, republished in 1982 but has – until now – been out of print. for many years.
The launch will take place at the Barracoon Building (Roseau City Council offices) on 21 April, Thursday, at 6.00pm. The book will be on sale for EC$35, along with orchids by Green Mountain Flowers. It will be available at Jay’s (special display), Coco Rico, The Loft, Papillote Wilderness Retreat, Dominica Manufacturers’ Assoc, Romance Cafe, Mero.
That is amazing, that the book was brought back into print. I would love to get a copy of the DVD as I played the part of Olivet, in the movie and had been unable to get a copy. I grew up in Dominica but I am Unaware that she lived in Dominica and died there. The book should be used in schools in Dominica as it makes for great conversation and history.
Denise Plummer would say: That’s dread, so dread…we wait ’til we heroes dead to put a crown on their head…”
My Aunt. A stalwart of Dominican history. She sacrificed everything for her country, and died neglected and in poverty.
The Orchid House is a good read. “Rufus” is my grand father.
God bless you, Aunt Phyllis.
That stalwart of the labour party Nan Ducreay had her expelled from his party because she had the audacity to question his crazy proposal to tax the export of bananas. Think about it, he wanted govt. to levy a tax on the exportation of bananas! I’ve never heard a more ludicrous idea in my life. No wonder, Premier Leblanc duly dismissed him from cabinet…and still the man has not learned his lesson. Where and what is he now?
She should now be honoured and have a schlarship In her name
It’s sad that she lived in poverty in her final years and the State did not come to her assistance despite her contribution to Dominica.
Well the “Mulatto elite” hated her for being a “traitor to her class” by creating a working class party with that working class trade union pioneer, Emannuel Christopher Loblack. And after using her to get into power, the Dominica Labour Party ditched her because she was an embarrasment and a threat. The RC Church did not like her either for how she depicted the bishop in that book. So she was alienated on both sides.
Then the Dominica Freedom Party grudgingly accepted her help and support in forming their party and used her mouthpiece “The Dominica Star” to spread their word. But in the end Dame Eugenia had pity on her and let her live rent free in her ‘old mill’ at Copt Hall. There was not even an official funeral. I understand that Lennox H paid for her funeral and drove her coffin in his pick-up truck. Maybe that is why today’s politicians “make hay while the sun shines” for fear of ending up that way. Some would say “who can blame them”.