Lawrence Scott - Leaving By Plane Swimming Back Underwater

Leaving by Plane
Swimming Back Underwater

"From a very promising to now a really accomplished writer, Lawrence Scott's last book is a delight." Derek Walcott

"Scott makes bold moves in plot and structure. Finely accomplished stories that often show Trinidad and the wider Caribbean cast in a blue-bruised light alongside the region’s history" Keith Jardim, Wasafiri, Issue 87 Autumn 2016 - Link

"These tales were first heard in the quiet tones of the confessional, in the gossip on the pews of the parish church, through the whisperings in a secret garden and in the dimly lit bedroom of illicit lovers behind the Radio City cinema near Paradise cemetery. They were heard from an old woman as she looked out from a courtyard above the sea. They were heard while, for some, their childhood disappeared, their youth bewildered them, and their middle age filled them with doubt and then joy. For others, their loneliness filled them with desire, and in their old age they were prepared for death, as a welcome relief from the darkness of cataracts and the discomfort of burning ears."

Home

Books

	Photograph - William Hurle

Awards

LongListed for The Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2016 - Link

Long-listed for the Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Association des Ecrivains de la Caraïbe from the Congrès des Ecrivains de la Caraïbe, Guadeloupe, 2017

Long-listed for the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award- Link

Reviews & Endorsements

"Something hatching," says Mrs Goveia in one of these stories - and she is right. You can hear it: there's "a little something" in those marvellous voices that grow into a very special world that Lawrence Scott has made his own. These are stories full of charm and surprise.' Romesh Gunesekera, Booker shortlisted author of Reef and Noon Tide Toll.

'What makes Scott a wonderful writer and a writer’s writer is his ability to explore and expose the complexities, imperfections and contradictions in human nature, to hear the voices of his characters so accurately and to construct compelling tales in richly textured prose.' Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, Trinidad Sunday Guardian, author of Mrs B and Four Taxis Facing North

“He’s fresh, he’s original, he gives the strange atmosphere of the West Indies a voice. Scott comes nearest to any English language author I know to carrying off that difficult task of evoking a place that is real and at the same time completely other.” Alexander Lucie-Smith Catholic Herald.

“Leaving by Plane Swimming back Underwater offers a saga of odysseys, some minor, some groundbreaking.”
Barbara Jenkins In Conversation at the National Library of Trinidad & Tobago Launch , Author of Sic Transit Wagon.

“The narratives remain focused, delivering deep cuts with great skill. Leaving by Plane Swimming back Underwater is, in this way, surgically precise, delivering grief, grace and redemption to fiction’s operating table." Shivanee Ramlochan, Trinidad Sunday Guardian

“Scott’s new short story collection, his second, is both satirical and ironical, tackling serious issues with humour and a lightness of touch.” Trinidad Sunday Express

"From a very promising to now a really accomplished writer, Lawrence Scott's last book is a delight." Derek Walcott

“Masterful writing by Scott. I wish I could find a way to write a review of a Lawrence Scott book that really does justice to his masterful writing. What leaves me most awestruck is Scott’s control as a writer. Scott creates vivid settings and complex characters that appear to be deceptively simple, but there are layers to discover in his characters. He doesn’t overwrite. He doesn’t insult the intelligence of readers by explaining his stories. Instead, Scott follows the cardinal rule of memorable writing: show don’t tell.” Debbie Jacob - Trinidad Express Link

“One principal underlying question, running like a musical riff throughout this collection, emerges: Does home remain? What is it, where is it, and how can a person hold on to it if they have chosen to leave it? These are questions that are painfully relevant to our contemporary global context characterized by waves of forced and economic migration. Scott confronts us with a lost wholeness versus “the pleasures of exile.” The scene is set between the Caribbean, often Trinidad and Tobago, and Europe, mostly Britain. Sophie Harris - Small Axe

Links

Small Axe - Link

The Visit - Link

Podcast 93 - Download our second interview with Trinidadian writer, Lawrence Scott

Lawrence Scott 2 - Link

Sounds of Home FT - Link

Sounds of Home Google - Link

Frank O'Connor - International Short Story Award - Link

The paradise island drenched in pre-Vatican II Catholicism - Link

Bocas News - News throughout each festival and all year round - Link

Google links - Link

Trinidad and Tobago Guardian - Link

Enjoyable swim at the Bocas - Trinidad Express - Link

Home & Away at Bocas 2015 Lawrence Scott & Shani Mootoo - Link

Writer Lawrence Scott on Trinidad: carnival, calypso and ecotourism - Link

Lawrence Scott on Shelf Unbound – Short Story Snapshots - Link

SoundCloud - Link

Reading Poetry at Paper Based Port of Spain - Link

Praise for Lawrence Scott's Short Stories

The prose is economical and beautifully veined. It is full of light and promise. Robin Blake, The Independent on Sunday

Lawrence Scott builds his story layer by layer revealing a subtle dependence of character and place and in the process showing an author in control of his form. Carl MacDougall, The Scotsman

Mighty impressive. The Literary Review

Scott’s language accurately reflects a world, which refuses to slip too easily into any received notions of West-Indianness...Scott reconnects us with the work of Marquez and Jean Rhys. This sensation of retuning linguistic strings alerts us to a new sound in Caribbean prose. Archie Markham

Lawrence Scott’s stories are a carnival for the senses, conjuring up the images, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the not-so innocence of childhood and the ambiguities of relationships in a society in the throes of reinventing itself.
Margaret Busby

Scott’s stories are full of lush detail and seedy grandeur...nostalgia is tempered with mockery. Judy Raymond, The Sunday Express T&T