Tag: saint martin

In a mundane life on a mundane summer afternoon

The island is awake, bursting with life, as the salty air roams through the streets. Some visitors have just woken up with no memory of last night, while others rose early to beat the morning traffic. Two lives, one island, both just as important as the other, but sometimes we tend to forget

A bookstore lies tucked away in a little corner behind the pharmacy in Concordia, not a destination for some, but it is for the moms and dads who have to buy school supplies for the upcoming school year.
You notice one thing as soon as you enter… it’s tiny.

The cashier, happily chatting with a customer; the young employee, enjoying what’s probably her first summer job; my sister, looking for the missing math manual; and me, the tagalong, all cramped in a little space.



Books stacked everywhere, from piles on the floor to shelves reaching the ceiling. I was expecting “Best Seller!” “New York Times!” “Critics love…”, all those fun little persuasions you find in every bookstore to get you to buy a book. Now, it wouldn’t be right of me to say they didn’t have any of these on display… there just weren’t many.

What I saw were dozens of books placed on makeshift pedestals, covers showing characters who looked like me. Like her. And like us.


They were not just books about African descent, they were books on Creole heritage, stories made just for us, and about us. It was our history and our people, all on display for us to see. It was as if, for the very first time, we were in the spotlight.
On a little island where almost everything is designed for the enjoyment of tourists, their happiness, their excitement, many of us forget our roots and who we are, too busy working on how we want them to perceive us. We forget where we came from. We forget our heritage.

But a little bookstore on a mundane summer afternoon was fighting a silent battle, all alone. And all it did was put front and center the people who built this island from the ground up, not just by showcasing books with Afro-Caribbean characters, but by showcasing books from our very own authors, such as New Moon for Quashiba, by our very own Joselyne Arnell, illustrated by her daughter Milky Laïja.


The cashier, happily chatting with a customer; the young employee, enjoying what’s probably her first summer job; my sister, looking for the missing math manual; and me, the tagalong, all cramped in a little space.


Books stacked everywhere, from piles on the floor to shelves reaching the ceiling. I was expecting “Best Seller!” “New York Times!” “Critics love…”, all those fun little persuasions you find in every bookstore to get you to buy a book. Now, it wouldn’t be right of me to say they didn’t have any of these on display… there just weren’t many.

What I saw were dozens of books placed on makeshift pedestals, covers showing characters who looked like me. Like her. And like us.