Frying Plantain

Zalika Reid-Benta

‘Each story in Frying Plantain is achingly poignant, insightful, and funny; each a gem unto itself. Ms. Reid-Benta’s fully sympathetic protagonist, Kara Davis, is a girl who belongs to neither Canada nor Jamaica, despite the fact that both places are ‘home.’ Her family — loving, flawed, and wickedly at odds with one another — all demand her loyalty, and her loyal friends aren’t friends at all. As a collection, these stunning stories create a multi-faceted jewel of a book.’

Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of The Scenic Route and Rabbits for Food

‘Zalika Reid-Benta’s first book — by turns effortless, vivid, funny, sad, and genuinely like being there — is as shiny as they come. Her spot-on capture of youthful aspiration, folly, and how family members tend to understand one another only in fragments make these stories a real pleasure — full of recognition, humour, and keenly observed lives in the here and now. Frying Plantain, a window into the world of growing upward and onward inside and outside family ties, is an absolute gem.’

Janice Galloway, author of Clara and All Made Up

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‘Zalika Reid-Benta announces herself as an enormous voice for the coming decade (and one that is desperately needed). Not all must-read books are this enjoyable.’

Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story and Lake Success

A thrillingly universal portrait of a young woman caught between two cultures

Kara Davis is a girl caught in the middle — of her Canadian nationality and her desire to be a ‘true’ Jamaican, of her mother and grandmother’s rages and life lessons, of having to avoid being thought of as too ‘faas’ or too ‘quiet’ or too ‘bold’ or too ‘soft’. Set in ‘Little Jamaica’, Toronto’s Eglinton West neighbourhood, Kara moves from girlhood to the threshold of adulthood, from primary school to high school graduation, in these twelve interconnected stories. We see her on a visit to Jamaica, startled by the sight of a severed pig’s head in her great aunt’s freezer; in high school, the victim of a devastating prank by her closest friends; and as a teenager in and out of her grandmother’s house, trying to cope with the ongoing battles between her unyielding grandparents.

A rich and unforgettable portrait of growing up between worlds, Frying Plantain shows how, in one charged moment, friendship and love can turn to enmity and hate, well-meaning protection can become control, and teasing play can turn to something much darker. In her brilliantly incisive debut, Zalika Reid-Benta artfully depicts the tensions between mothers and daughters, second-generation children and first-generation cultural expectations, and Black identity and predominately white society.

Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of The Scenic Route and Rabbits for Food

Janice Galloway, author of Clara and All Made Up

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size:

Extent:272pp

ISBN (13):9781925849554

RRP:$24.99

Pub date:3 Mar 2020

Rights Held: ANZ

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AWARDS

2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize - Long-listed

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AUTHOR

Zalika Reid-Benta

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based writer whose work has appeared on CBC Books, in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, and in Apogee Journal. In 2011, George Elliott Clarke recommended her as a ‘Writer to Watch’. She received an MFA in fiction from Columbia University in 2014, and is an alumnus of the 2017 Banff Writing Studio. She completed a double major in English Literature and Cinema and a minor in Caribbean Studies at University of Toronto’s Victoria College. She also studied Creative Writing at U of T’s School of Continuing Studies. She is currently working on a young-adult fantasy novel drawing inspiration from Jamaican folklore and Akan spirituality.