We've known Esther Figueroa as the daring Environmental documentary filmmaker who has sent out visual alarms & pleas of justice for the protection of our endangered legacies…human/animal…land/resources…intricate eco relationships…sustainable development. Her association with the vital causes espoused by the Jamaican Environmental Trust has raised her to the hierarchy of citizen advocates who carry loads we share, but don't always get to a Promised Land.

Esther has come out with a novel (Limbo), following on the heels of a perhaps-mentor, Diana McCaulay (Dog-Heart; Huracan; Writing Jamaica…), whose social empathy with her Island's populations, weaving issues of privilege-responsibility, ethics, guilt, family history & consequences, interacting with a tenuous environment, lifts veils on aches we dare not ignore.

Limbo is an environmental novel about Jamaica that uniquely combines satire, romance, mystery and an environmental manifesto that "should evoke in every reader a passionate desire to redeem what is left clinging to the exposed roots [of Paradise]" (Olive Senior),
with descriptions of nature that are "one of the most lyric & healing moments in Caribbean literature" (Kamau Braithwaite).

Shawna Yang Ryan describes the protagonist of Limbo, the "brilliant, sexy, and adorably anxious Flora Smith," as "one of the most charming heroines I've encountered in recent fiction."
In Jamaica, the land of "No Problem Mon," everything is known but off the record. Can Flora get anyone to be held accountable? Can she find solutions for any of Jamaica's problems?

Limbo is a humorous, sensuous romp, detailing one woman's struggle to find ways to effectively achieve change while making peace with herself and her island, which she loves more than anyone. Through her attempts at transforming the world and herself, we encounter deep friendship, new love, and the complexities of contemporary Jamaica, a place of achingly exquisite but threatened beauty, routine brutality, and poorly hidden secrets.

"Limbo is what a 'novel' coud or shoud be." Kamau Brathwaite, Poet, Professor Emeritus Caribbean Lit/Culture, New York University
"This brave and witty new novel... is a landmark work of extraordinary importance." Patricia Powell, author of The Pagoda and The Fullness of Everything

"The evocation of the Jamaican landscape is a magnificent achievement." George Lamming, author of In the Castle of my Skin

"Esther Figueroa deftly navigates between steamy romance, backdoor deals and dangerous plunges into the inferno of Jamaica's environmental disasters. But the novel's other side is its tender and evocative celebration of love, friendship, place and belonging. Limbo is a page turner that will make you want to start all over again when you come to the end." Olive Senior, author of Dancing Lessons

"Figueroa achieves something all too rare—a deadly serious story lightened by laugh-out- loud humor and genuine warmth." Shawna Yang Ryan, author of Water Ghosts
"Limbo is a courageous, audacious, indeed reckless work.... A true-true tale, not to be missed!" Pamela Mordecai, author of Pink Icing, and Subversive Sonnets

Sounds like a "Salon Setting" for the nooks & crannies of up-coming Calabash Fest'


Video Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yln3Aq2NQSg

With Diana as "perhaps mentor" you have for sure put this on my must read list. I really rate Dog-Heart as a top selection and look forward to this read. Thanks for the heads up on this.