Butterfly in the Wind

This fictionalised autobiography gives a richly woven portrait of Kamla''s life from early childhood to the point where she leaves her family, Pasea village and Trinidad to attend university in the UK.

It gives a vivid and inward picture of a Caribbean community still in touch with its roots, seen from the developing perspective of a young woman at the crossroads of diverse social, cultural and religious influences. The portrait bears witness to the moral strengths of the community as well as showing Kamla''s growing awareness of the repressions and hypocrisies of its treatment of women. From early in her life Kamla is surprised by a contrary inner voice which frequently gainsays the wisdom of her elders and betters. But Kamla is growing up in a traditional Hindu community and attending schools in colonial Trinidad where rote learning is still the order of the day. She learns that this voice creates nothing but trouble and silences it. In this book the voice is freed.

Set in the 1940s, Butterfly in the Wind was enthusiastically received when it first appeared in 1990. Its portrayal of a passage from childhood to young womanhood was praised by The Sunday Times as "a sweet-natured book which is above all a tremendous celebration of life". The Observer praised it for "the empathy with which Lakshmi Persaud writes of the natural world... and Hindu customs".

Lakshmi Persaud was born in 1939 in Trinidad. She is the author of Butterfly in the Wind, Sastra and For the Love of My Name. She lives in London.