Suite as Sugar is a collection of fourteen short stories that centre on the experiences of people who live in the Caribbean (mostly Trinidad) and of the Caribbean diaspora living in Canada. They touch on gentrification in downtown Toronto; a pandemic named The Scourge and a look at forced vaccination as a product of colonialism; the ways that colonialism, hand-in-hand with capitalism, can turn a people against their own once they’re let into the wealthy, educated club; and the ways that culture from home can be lost in Canada. My favourites from the collection are the stories that brought the reader into the head of someone living in the Caribbean, for instance, in “I’s de Man Lane,” the protagonist paints a picture of a typical Trinidadian male: “some man behind the wheel plots his revenge on any and all drivers who apparently represent his past wounds and present traumas and frustrations. I’s de man, boy! The speed demons, the entitled mama’s boys who cannot take a no, not from anyone; the wealthy princes in sleek, expensive cars … all routinely testing out their manhood in this blasted middle lane.” This is a varied and intelligent collection that will give readers a deep look into life in Trinidad and the lives of Trinidadians in Canada. 

Why I Wrote Suite as Sugar

by Camille Hernández-Ramdwar

This book was a long time coming – you might say I was sitting on the nest of these story-eggs for about 20 years! During my teens and twenties, I was writing poetry, short stories and narratives, and getting published in journals and anthologies. But once I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Sociology, to support myself and my two children, my creative writing stopped.  Eventually, I became a tenured professor…but academia had shut down my right brain function. I kept telling everyone in the university “I’m really a writer!” and their response was typically “Yeah, sure…”

Thank god for COVID or I would probably still be saying that. In 2020 I just sat down and wrote everything I had in me in a matter of months, and then sent it out to as many publishers as possible. The rejections were piling up and I was feeling discouraged – but then I heard that Dundurn Press had a new imprint (Rare Machines) and was looking for exciting, fresh voices, so I submitted. The joy I felt when I got accepted was indescribable. From then on I have felt like I am exactly where I am supposed to be – writing writing and more writing. In Suite as Sugar I address many of the issues and themes that I used to teach academically – but which to me are so much more interesting when conveyed through the experiences of characters in a literary fashion.

Camille Hernández-Ramdwar is a multi-racial, multicultural, multilingual, and transnational writer and scholar. The veil between the corporeal and the incorporeal is very thin in her work, which explores the search for belonging; the collective violences of neo-colonialism, poverty, racism, sexism, and other injustices; and the important interrelationship between matter and spirit. She divides her time between Toronto and Trinidad and Tobago.