Have any of you ever heard of the writer Elizabeth Nunez? Or read any of her books? No? Well, maybe you should. In fact, maybe we should. Book club, anyone? Let’s let that marinate.

So on Wednesday night, I went to Hue-Man Bookstore (on Frederick Douglass Blvd. in Harlem) to hear Dr. Nunez (please don’t call her by her first name) read from her latest novel, Anna In Between. This book is Dr. Nunez’ 7th (!) book and tells the story of Anna, a successful book publisher living in New York who goes home to Trinidad to spend some time with her aging parents. When she gets there, she finds out that her mother has cancer. On top that that, Anna, is forced to deal with a lot of issues of identity and understand where she comes from and where she belongs. She was born in Trinidad, but lived most of her life in the U.S., so she feels in-between both places, and both cultures. She is also spending a lot of time with her parents and trying to understand their relationship (which she doesn’t), getting  to know them as people (outside of being her parents), dealing with class issues (they are an upper-middle class family with a maid), and, as Nunez said, “using American eyes to judge her Caribbean family,” and culture.

Can any of you relate?

Well, the author, Elizabeth Nunez sure can. She was born in Trinidad, and is now a successful writer in New York. Her parents were upper-middle class, and her mother also had breast cancer. So she knows of what she writes. “The world viewed in American eyes is very different from the world viewed in Caribbean eyes,” she said.

Writer Elizabeth Nunez at Hue Man; she talks...

...she listens

“If you really want to know a person, you have to look at them through their lenses, which is very hard to do.”

In the novel, Anna has to readjust to her homeland and reconnect to the physical landscape of the place where she was born. Nunez said that a write she admires, Barbadian George Lamming belives that “landscape is a destiny in a way,” meaning that  “landscape shapes us.” Do you believe that? How much have you been shaped by where you live? What is it about New York, about being a New York girl, that makes you who are you?

Nunez has written a bunch of books, many focusing on culture and identity, so check them out if you’re looking for a good read.