Friends since attending university in Jamaica, Lethe and Daniel have long realized they would never be good for each other. But Lethe is Daniel's muse, and theirs is a connection that proves unbreakable as they spend the next thirty years crisscrossing the Caribbean and travelling the world in search of work, love, and home. Now, Daniel has become an internationally renowned prize-winning poet, and Lethe aspires to be a writer in her own right. His invitation to her to join him at an isolated retreat, Peacock Island, gives them both a chance to reflect on the life they've shared.

The debut novel by Governor General's Literary Award-winning author Rachel Manley, The Black Peacock is the story of two unforgettable characters, adrift on the ever-changing tides of the Caribbean, who are united by something less than passion but more than love.

RACHEL MANLEY is the author of the memoir Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood, which won the Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction in 1997, and Slipstream: A Daughter Remembers. She has also published three books of poetry and edited Edna Manley: The Diaries, a collection of her grandmother’s journals. Manley is a New York Public Library Fellow, a Pierre Berton Fellow, a Rockefeller Fellow (Bellagio), and a former Bunting Fellow for Literature at Radcliffe College. She serves on the creative writing faculty at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has won Jamaica’s prestigious Centennial Medal for Poetry. Manley divides her time between Toronto and Jamaica. She has two sons, Drum and Luke.

Rachel Manley's profile page

• Short-listed, The Amazon Canada First Novel Award

"The Black Peacock tells an engaging story of a love affair in a state of suspended animation. Themes of grief, family, and the writing life course through a novel in which 'living is just a long corridor of echoes.'"

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