On a Woman's Madness - Astrid Roemer (tr.Lucy Scott)

This sensuous novel will transport you to Suriname while exploring themes of identity, feminism, power, and colonial history through the lens of a woman's journey towards self-discovery. Roemer builds on her own experiences and cultural insights and intertwines the personal and the political, exposing the oppressive structures that shape the lives of her characters.

Astrid Roemer was born in Paramaribo, Suriname, in 1947, and moved to the Netherlands in 1975, she has published novels, plays and poetry. On a Woman’s Madness is one of the works that brought her recognition.

A classic of queer literature that’s as electrifying today as it was when it originally appeared in 1982, On a Woman’s Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America’s tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by the passionate romances of the present but haunted by society’s expectations and her ancestral past.
Translated into sensuous English for the first time by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer’s intimate novel—with its tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers—is a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey.

Finalist, 2023 National Book Awards
Astrid Roemer was awarded P.C. Hooft Prize in 2016, and the Dutch Literature Prize (Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren) in 2021

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