Tropic Death
Tropic Death
This chapter discusses the varied dimensions of Walrond's short story collection, Tropic Death, as a compelling tome of black transnational fiction. The stories therein contain elements that confound the North American reader—his intended audience—even as they sought to assert the Caribbean experience. Walrond likewise abhorred what he felt was a tendency to disguise sociological tracts as novels, and instead introduced supernatural elements into plausible plots. In one sense then, Tropic Death delivered the “stunning blow” of an alternate Caribbean truth but, in another sense, it contested truth telling itself. In many ways Walrond pursued a certain literary fashion—ostentatious in its technique, elliptical in its storytelling—yet he also confounded convention, turning the Caribbean picturesque on its head, or more precisely on its ear.
Keywords: Tropic Death, black transnational fiction, Caribbean picturesque, short story, North American reader, supernatural elements
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