Inkle & Yarico

by Beryl Gilroy

After 20-year-old Thomas Inkle is left the sole survivor of a shipwreck in the West Indies, he is rescued by Yarico, a Carib woman who takes him as her lover. Their erotic encounter, which has a profound effect on both, is explored with poetic, imaginative intensity. Amongst the Caribs, Inkle is a mere child whose survival depends entirely on Yarico's favor and protection. When he is rescued and taken with Yarico to the slave island of Barbados, however, she is entirely at his mercy. Loosely based on a popular narrative in the 17th and 18th centuries, this version of the tale's mythic dimensions are reinterpreted from both a female and a black perspective, engaging the reader in the psychological truths of the characters' experiences while laying the past bare as a text for the present.

Genres: Historical Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Beryl Agatha Gilroy (née Answick) (30 August 1924 – 4 April 2001) was a novelist and teacher, and "one of Britain's most significant post-war Caribbean migrants". Born in what was then British Guiana (now Guyana), she moved in the 1950s to the United Kingdom, where she became the first black headteacher in London. She was the mother of academic Paul Gilroy.

Gilroy's creative writing began in childhood, as a teacher for children and then in the 1960s when she began writing what was later published by Peepal Tree Press as In Praise of Love and Children. Between 1970 and 1975 she wrote the pioneering children’s series Nippers, which contain probably the first reflection of the Black British presence in UK writing for children.

It was not until 1986 that her first novel, the award-winning Frangipani House was published (Heinemann). It won a GLC Creative Writing Prize in 1982. Set in an old person’s home in Guyana, it reflects one of her professional concerns: the position of ethnic minority elders and her persistent emphasis on the drive for human freedom. Boy Sandwich (Heinemann) was published in 1989, followed by Stedman and Joanna: A Love in Bondage (Vantage, 1991), and a collection of poems, Echoes and Voices (Vantage, 1991). Then came Sunlight and Sweet Water (Peepal Tree, 1994), Gather the Faces, In Praise of Love and Children and Inkle and Yarico (all Peepal Tree, 1994). Her last novel, The Green Grass Tango (Peepal Tree) was published in 2001, sadly after Beryl Gilroy’s death in April of that year.

Gilroy's early work examined the impact of life in Britain on West Indian families and her later work explored issues of African and Caribbean diaspora and slavery.

In 1998, a collection of her non-fiction writing, entitled Leaves in the Wind, came out from Mango Publishing. It included her lectures, notes, essays, dissertations and personal reviews.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

INKLE & YARICO by Beryl Gilroy, 1996 by @peepaltreepress

#ReadCaribbean
#ReadtheWorld21 📍Guyana

A re-imagined tale, adapted from the 1657 account by Englishman Richard Ligon: a shipwrecked English man, Thomas Inkle, is rescued and saved by the Carib indigenous peoples on an unnamed island.

His first contact is with Yarico, the daughter of a Black man, a maroon now living with the Carib people, and an indigenous woman. Yarico nurses Thomas, and he is accepted into the society. Living among them for 7 years, he never sheds the supremacy and superiority he believes he possesses over the people who saved his life, provided for him, and bore his children. When he, Yarico, and their child are captured on the beach by a Barbadian ship, Thomas is quick to return to his English life.

Gilroy takes the voice of Inkle in this historical fiction, showing Yarico and other Carib and Black characters through his eyes. With each page, it is harder to "stomach" Inkle's words and actions, he becomes more and more deplorable.

This historical tale was first noted in 1657 (but may have been much older), then retold in several forms, including a serialization in 1711 pamphlets, and later a 19th-century stage play. Gilroy's version challenges these previous narratives with her depictions of indigenous and enslaved peoples.

Beryl Gilroy's work was recommended by Dee @ddeabreu in her recent post on Guyanese writers. Thank you for the introduction to her work, Dee! Gilroy has written several books, including two memoirs of her work as the first Black head teachers in London, after she emigrated from (then) British Guiana to the UK in the 1950s as part of the "Windrush Generation".

[angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book to learn more about white supremacy and structures of power within and out of Britain. Beryl Gilroy chose to write this in a white man's perspective for a reason, as a Black woman of Caribbean decent. Giving four stars because Inkle is insufferable lmaooo

[Caley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is fascinating, despite it not being a very pleasant read. Gilroy portrays the arrogance of an 18th Century slave trader incredibly well, with Inkle's unreliability and hypocrisy making the reader loathe him even though he controls the narrative.

[Cordellya Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story, but was really disappointed by Inkle and his actions at the end of this tale. I felt like he didn't deserve Yarico and her faithfulness because he was a lout.

[Joy]

I‘m still mighty impressed at Gilroy‘s ability to write so convincingly as a slave-trading Englishman in the 17th-18th centuries.

[Charli · Rating 3 out of 5]

i fear i remember very little 2.5?

[Giselle Trent · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few books I have read about early European encounters with the native peoples of the Caribbean. Fabulous!

[Malin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing writing + a plot that makes you incredibly angry at the way humans through history have treated eachother = a clear winner. An important read!