(2008) by the Black British writer Laura Fish (1964-2004) is a novel that features a process of imaginative re-narration of nineteenth-century histories of race and gender oppression from the perspective of marginalized female figures. The work draws on the life and work of the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose family fortunes were derived from the use of slave labour on their Jamaican plantations. It follows a trajectory that alternates between three women’s experiences: Kaydia, a Creole maidservant on the Barrett’s Jamaican estate, Sheba, a former slave and an indentured field labourer on the same plantation, and Elizabeth herself who is confined to bed in Torquay, on the coast of Devon, recuperating from illness. The story is set both in England and…
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Citation: Colomba, Caterina. "Strange Music". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 February 2025 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41865, accessed 22 February 2025.]
