Harold Sonny Ladoo (Author) Harold Sonny Ladoo was born in Trinidad in 1945, the son of a peasant. He grew up in the Caribbean, working in the cane fields and on the boats. In 1968 he immigrated to Toronto, Canada with his wife and two children, and enrolled at Erindale College at the University of Toronto. He maintained a double life, studying and writing by day and working by night in a variety of restaurant jobs in order to support his family. In 1972 he graduated with a BA and in September House of Anansi Press published his first novel, No Pain Like This Body . This earned Ladoo immediate recognition as a new literary talent and he was awarded a writing bursary from the Canada Council which he used to finance his return to Trinidad in August 1973, to research further books. His trip was tragically curtailed when on 17 August he was discovered in a drainage ditch, having been brutally attacked. He died shortly afterwards, aged just twenty-eight.
His second novel, Yesterdays , was published posthumously in 1974, and Canada lamented again the loss of a gifted writer. Harold Sonny Ladoo left behind him a large collection of manuscripts: two further novels, many short stories and poems. Monique Roffey (Introducer) Monique Roffey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad. She is the author of six novels and a memoir. The Mermaid of Black Conch won the Costa Book of the Year and the Costa Novel Award 2020. It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021, the Goldsmiths Prize 2020 and the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2021, and longlisted for the Orwell Prize, the Ondaatje Prize and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2021. Her highly acclaimed previous books are sun dog , The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2010), Archipelago (winner of the OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature 2013), House of Ashes (shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2014), The Tryst and With the Kisses of His Mouth . Monique Roffey is a Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and a tutor for the National Writers Centre.