Blessed is the fruit :a novel

"In Antoni's second novel....two women with vastly different backgrounds–Lilla, the white mistress of a colonial mansion, and Vel, her black servant–come together over an unborn child. The two have lived cloistered in a dilapidated old mansion for ten years. When Vel discovers that she is pregnant and attempts to rid herself of the child, Lilla discovers the truth, saves Vel from a botched abortion, and brings Vel to the safety of her own bed. Through flashbacks, we learn about each woman's life as she tells her tale to the unborn child. Literate and intricately crafted, this book is an interesting exploration of a time when different races led very different lives." Library Journal

"The inescapable ties between two West Indian women of vastly different backgrounds is at the heart of Trinidadian author Antoni's (Divina Trace) challenging novel. In the late 1940s, Velma Bootman, a single black woman, is the sole remaining household help at Lilla Woodward's crumbling island mansion. Despairing over an unwelcome pregnancy, Vel repeatedly attempts to self-abort; her last bloody try is interrupted by Lilla, who takes Vel into her own private quarters to recuperate. As Vel regains her strength, both women address stories to the stubborn fetus they call "Bolom," after a figure from an old West Indian folk tale. Vel's life has been one of struggle and deprivation, marked by the deaths of her children and the incorrigible unfaithfulness of her husband, Berry. Lilla has spent her life deeply conflicted about her mixed religious heritage (a Protestant father and a Catholic mother). Lilla marries popular cricket player Keith Woodward, whom she dubs Daisy, and the pair rescues the family home from bankruptcy. Falsely alarmed that she might be pregnant, Lilla tries to "throw" her child; when Daisy leaves her for European cricket and another man, she plunges into grief. Only when Lilla's former nursemaid reveals an old secret can she and Vel begin to understand the bond that ties them together. In addition to the device of having Lilla and Vel address their narratives to Bolom, Antoni is working in a nearly Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness mode thick with island dialect and references that place a heavy demand on the reader. Much of it is beautiful, and Vel and Lilla are commanding characters, but this dense duet of voices requires patient and attentive reading before one reaches the rewarding and moving conclusion." Publisher's Weekly

Robert Antoni's fictional world is the island of Corpus Christi, and to re-create it, he draws upon his two hundred years of family history in Trinidad and Tobago and his upbringing in the Bahamas. His first novel, Divina Trace, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and is gaining recognition as a landmark in Caribbean literature. He holds a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He divides his time between Barcelona and Miami Beach, where he teaches at the University of Miami, and is a senior editor at the literary journal Conjunctions.