JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, May 17, 2025

Mackenzie writes, ‘because it’s magic’

by

IRA MATHUR 
594 days ago
20231001

IRA MATH­UR 

Sun­day Guardian’s Book­shelf cel­e­brates the work of Trinida­di­an trans­la­tor and writer Car­o­line Macken­zie, whose de­but nov­el One Year of Ug­ly (pub­lished in 2020 by Bor­ough Press & Harper­Collins UK) was op­tioned by Net­flix. 

Macken­zie, who was short­list­ed for the 2017 Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize and win­ner of the 2018 Small Axe Short Fic­tion Prize, says “writ­ing and sto­ry­telling” is a “com­pul­sion” and “ge­net­ic hard­wiring” as mem­bers of her blood fam­i­ly are “in­ca­pable of telling a “suc­cinct” anec­dote.

“The more twists, turns, and tan­gents, the bet­ter. My Ger­man grand­moth­er was a com­pul­sive writer and among the best (if fac­tu­al­ly ques­tion­able) sto­ry­tellers. I re­mem­ber sit­ting at her an­tique type­writer, en­rap­tured by the sen­sa­tion of the keys. Their clack-clack-clack­ing evoked some vis­cer­al, un­name­able emo­tion.

“I loved the flu­id mo­tion of my hands across the key­board, watch­ing words ap­pear in neat rows, my thoughts sud­den­ly tan­gi­ble and ex­posed. It was like a painter first pick­ing up a brush or a mu­si­cian first strum­ming a gui­tar. I’d found my medi­um.”

Macken­zie, who is clear­ly as much a racon­teur as she is a writer–hi­lar­i­ous, touch­ing­ly can­did, self-dep­re­cat­ing, and clever, writes to “vent” per­ceived in­jus­tices, to “cel­e­brate what makes life, in all its ab­sur­di­ty, gor­geous and un­miss­able”. But most­ly “be­cause writ­ing is mag­ic”.“At eight, my fu­el was the un­just de­nial of sweets. When I wrote One Year Of Ug­ly in my late 20s, it was over the xeno­pho­bia against the Venezue­lan mi­grants in Trinidad.”

Now, at 36, Macken­zie is writ­ing on how “un­equal do­mes­tic and par­ent­ing load im­pacts women’s ca­reers, es­pe­cial­ly in the arts”.

The fol­low­ing is an ex­tract from Macken­zie’s short sto­ry com­mis­sioned by the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest 2023 for re­pro­duc­tion grant­ed ex­clu­sive­ly to the Sun­day Guardian.

She Make to Moko “Let’s take a lit­tle look, shall we? I know it’s their bed­room at 2:59 am, cir­cum­stances in which any­one might ex­pect a lit­tle pri­va­cy, but that’s the time and place it hap­pens–every night since Birdie told John­ny Boyokay, let’s do it. As the clock strikes three you see Birdie’s eyes open wide. Pop! Same thing every night. There’s John­ny Boy next to her, peace­ful­ly fart­ing in his sleep, he and his bow­els obliv­i­ous to the pan­icked ques­tions clang-clang-clang­ing in Birdie’s brain: How? How will I be able to do it? How? And even if John­ny Boy could hear, what would he say any­way? Birdie knows: Why you hot­tin’ your head for? Woman make to Moko. Words Birdie has been hear­ing her whole life but nev­er re­al­ly tak­ing on. Un­til now. Be­cause now it’s her turn. In This Place, women had be­come Moko for as long as any­one could re­mem­ber. On­ly women.Woman make to Moko. That’s how the say­ing went. And it was a priv­i­lege, too, they said, for women to be able to don Stilts, to be up-front-and-cen­tre in the Cul­tur­al Pro­gramme, keep­ing Tra­di­tions and Cul­ture in­tact. Some said Moko was the on­ly thing any woman should ever want to be. And why not, when they were so mag­nif­i­cent up there in a world of their own, some Moko so skilled they could pirou­ette and pas-de-bour­rée, stretch their oth­er­world­ly, nev­erend­ing legs in el­e­gant adages, swirling sil­hou­ettes against the spot­lights of every Cul­tur­al Event in This Place. Men were re­spon­si­ble for mak­ing and main­tain­ing the Stilts, and as Part­ners, men would at­tach their Stilts to the women, a painful process in­volv­ing bolts and screws, a fair bit of gore … some­times fe­mur-sized sy­ringes of anaes­the­sia. (You for­get the pain even­tu­al­ly, they said. And then is bliss once you find your stride.) The men would be there when the woman stood Stilt­ed for the first time, wob­bling and un­cer­tain, fright­ened of falling with each new step, but al­ready in love with the feel of tree­tops skim­ming her shoul­ders, the fresh­ness of un­pol­lut­ed breeze way up high above the Free Walk­ers, who weren’t on­ly men but oth­er women too. Some women had no in­ter­est in be­com­ing Moko, but wound up Moko any­way—usu­al­ly be­cause they got drunk with a man who of­fered Stilts they couldn’t re­sist. They adapt­ed even­tu­al­ly. No choice. But all Moko, no mat­ter how they’d wound up Stilt­ed, took pride in their role in the Cul­tur­al Pro­gramme; every­one knew the grace, strength, and sta­mi­na it took to live and per­form on Stilts. This, their love of walk­ing tall, feel­ing their Stilts as a true ex­ten­sion of their be­ing, was what cre­at­ed an in­stant bond among Moko. That and the bitch­ing. Get a few Moko to­geth­er and you could count the min­utes be­fore they’d start rant­i­ng about their un­en­cum­bered Part­ners, the men who got to ad­mire and ap­plaud their Stilts at the Cul­tur­al Events, slap on some fresh var­nish every now and then, but nev­er have to en­dure the bur­den of mov­ing through life Stilt­ed. Be­cause won­drous as it was to be up there, it was al­so a huge pain in the ass to nev­er walk free again. But once Moko, al­ways Moko.” End of Ex­tract. 

Car­o­line Macken­zie’s writ­ing has been wide­ly pub­lished in­clud­ing in Red mag­a­zine, Styl­ist, MA­CO Caribbean Liv­ing, and MA­CO Peo­ple. In 2005 Macken­zie won a Na­tion­al Open Schol­ar­ship and earned a Mas­ter’s in Sci­en­tif­ic, Med­ical and Tech­ni­cal Trans­la­tion from Im­pe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023. (www.iras­room.org) Email iras­room@gmail.com


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored