The View from Belmont - Softcover

Port of Spain, Saturday, April 26[superscript th], 1823
My Dear Alice - Fait accompli! I have had Kano in my bed!
So Clara Bayley confesses to her friend in Dorset. Whilst her seduction of Kano, her loyal slave, remains a secret between them, her independence in running her late husband's cocoa estate and publicly taking a young mulatto doctor as her lover scandalises colonial society.
Clara's letters to Alice, telling of the cruelties, comedy and surprising humanity of life on the Belmont Estate, are rediscovered in 1990. They provoke animated quarrels amongst the group of Trinidadians who meet to read and discuss them. Is she a "worthless white bitch - no different from any of them men who was screwing their slave-women" or a sensible woman taking charge of her life and looking for companionship? Whatever, all are agreed that the legacy of slavery continues to shape the present.