Tyler learns that Mala’s family history has also touched on homosexuality. The reader learns when he first realized he was gay, and his continued attempts to hide this major aspect of his life. Mala is crushed after this departure she felt that her younger sister, Asha, was one of the people who reciprocated her love.Īs Mala’s story unravels, so does Tyler’s. Her younger sister, understandably wishing to remove herself from this environment, left the country. Her mother abandoned her at a young age (the reader finds out later that her departure was more complicated than simple abandonment) and her father repeatedly raped her. Tyler learns that there are tragic reasons behind Mala’s “uncultured” behavior. Later, she’ll speak softly and in short sentences.

Her first noises imitate the sounds of birds and insects.

As Mala begins to see that Tyler holds no ill-intent, she opens up. In the beginning of the novel, he says that he is sharing this story in the hopes that Mala’s long-lost sister will try to make contact with her again. The social exclusion he has felt for most of his life makes him sympathetic toward Mala’s suffering. Though he is a skilled nurse, the administrator doesn’t let him work with most patients unless they’re “freaks” like Mala. As a gay man, Tyler is frequently ostracized on the island. Because of his voluble disposition, Tyler is the main narrator of Cereus Blooms at Night. All the other social workers are afraid of her because of her reputation as a father-killer. After a judge declares that she is a mental imbecile and likely murdered her father, Mala is sent to the Paradise Alms House. She has spent her entire life on the island of Lantanacamara (a fictional island in the Caribbean). Mala (aka Pohpoh) Ramchandin, a seemingly mad woman, is accused of killing her father, Chandin Ramchandin. The novel is set in Paradise, a fictional town in the Caribbean.

Its themes include gender and sexual relationships, sexual violence, identity formation, and resilience despite cruel social structures. Most covers of Cereus Blooms at Night feature one of her paintings. Along with her writing, Mootoo has exhibited work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and produces films.

The novel received numerous awards in Canada, and it was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It follows two social outcasts in the Caribbean, one of whom works to tell the other’s story of abuse. Cereus Blooms at Night (1998) is the debut work by Canadian-Trinidadian author and visual artist Shani Mootoo.

Cereus blooms at night by shani mootoo