☰The Orchid House

Allfrey was born in Roseau in 1908 and became one of the most important figures in Dominican politics — she helped found the Dominica Labour Party and served as a government minister. Her only novel, published in 1953, tells the story of three white Creole sisters returning to their family home on a Caribbean island unmistakably modelled on Dominica. It captures the twilight of the planter class and the stirrings of independence with real tenderness and clear eyes.