Indigo
is one of the many works of literature inspired by Shakespeare's The
Tempest. In this
novel Marina Warner spills the beans about her ancestors, who were
the first colonizers of the Caribbean island of St. Kitts
(Enfant-Béate in the novel), back in the seventeenth century. In the
novel, Kit Everard sails for the New World, where he establishes a
new colony and has some skirmishes with the indigenous people. The
author also explores the character of Sycorax, Caliban's witch mother
who in the book is a Carib woman, who dies indigo and heals with the
herbs she can find on the island. She has adopted two children:
Ariel, an Arawak girl from the mainland, and Doulé (Caliban), an
African baby boy littered by the ocean. While Caliban will leave and
search for his African roots, however, Ariel will become a sort of
Caribbean Malinche, and will bear Kit Everard's children.
Back
in the twentieth century, we encounter Miranda and Xanthe,
descendants of the first Kit Everard, who both live in London and
have issues with their family of former planters. The attention is on
Miranda, who is artistic, and worried about her heritage. With a
Creole grandmother and dark features, she is constantly looking for
her identity and her place in the world. Her young aunt (and almost
half-sister) Xanthe, instead, is carefree and eager to earn some
money by exploiting the possibilities tourism has brought to
Enfant-Béate. She decides to go back to the islands, together with
Miranda, for the anniversary of the first landing. The two girls will
find answers on Enfant-Béate, but in different ways.
At
first I loved this book and I couldn't put it down. Marina Warner is
certainly an excellent writer; too bad that the last part was a
little flat. I wish that the last section, set in the present time,
had reached its full potential: you get only glimpses of the
conflicting thoughts that the past of Miranda and Xanthe's family
brings to their minds. All in all, it was a fascinating reading: it's
good to read about the colonies from the perspective of the
colonizers with an awareness of the guilt that such an identity can
bring.
