Newburyport Public Library

Silence of the Chagos, Shenaz Patel ; translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman

eng

no index present

fiction

Silence of the Chagos

1085216685

Shenaz Patel ; translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman

Every afternoon a woman in a red headscarf walks to the end of the quay and looks out over the water, fixing her gaze "back there"--to Diego Garcia, one of the small islands forming the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. With no explanation, no warning, and only an hour to pack their belongings, the Chagossians were forced on a boat headed to Mauritius. Government officials tell Charlesia that the island is "closed"-- there is no going back for any of them. Charlesia longs for life on Diego Garcia, where the days were spent working on a coconut plantation, the nights dancing to sega music. As she struggles to come to terms with her new reality, Charlesia crosses paths with Désiré, a young man born on the one-way journey to Mauritius. Désiré has never set foot on Diego Garcia, but as Charlesia unfolds the dramatic story of their people, he learns of the home he never knew and of the life he might have had. With the fate of Chagos' sovereignty currently being decided on an international level, Silence of the Chagos is an important and humanizing exploration of the rights of individuals and a reckoning with displacement on a global scale