The novelist Monique Roffey was born in Trinidad and educated both there and in the UK. Her distinctive body of work explore themes of colonialism and decolonisation through mythography and magic realism, starting with Sun Dog in 2002. Also known as a creative-writing teacher, Roffey is a former centre director of the Arvon Foundation at Totleigh Barton in Devon – a setting and milieu that provided the backdrop for her memoir, With the Kisses of his Mouth (2011). She is currently a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and established the St James Writers’ Room in Port of Spain. Her second novel, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (2009), appeared on the shortlists for both the Orange Prize and the Encore Award (for best second novel). Its successor, Archipelago (2012), received the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature; House of Ashes (2014) appeared on the shortlist for the Costa Book Awards.
Her sixth novel, The Mermaid of Black Conch, is set on a fictional Caribbean island and concerns Aycayia, a beautiful mermaid, the victim of an ancient curse who is pulled from the sea by an American father and son during a fishing competition, and her relationship with David, the local fisherman who rescues and shelters her. This is Roffey’s first appearance on the shortlist for the Goldsmiths Prize.
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