The Lagahoo's Apprentice (signed)

This beautiful, harrowing novel, from the much praised writer whose previous work was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book and the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, is the gripping story of a man who returns to the island of his youth in the hopes of recapturing a lost happiness.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, filled with nostalgia for a simpler, joyful time, Stephen Sagar leaves eagerly for Trinidad when he is commissioned by a powerful island politician to write his biography. The politician - a despot who has buttressed himself in an old plantation - ignores him at first, but Stephen is befriended by servants who show him a side of island life he'd chosen to forget. Then, as he explores the lush landscape, he runs into a woman who once loved him, and in her need to love again, his own longing begins to evolve and intensify.

The writing is as powerful and memorable as the story itself - with extraordinary characters, moments of wrenching poignancy and flashes of hilarity, and wondrous descriptions of the gothic plantation and its creeping, scented plant life.

Rabindranath Maharaj's first novel, Homer in Flight, was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, praised by writers such as Olive Senior and Neil Bissoondath, and broadcast on CBC's Between the Covers. His previous collection of short stories, The Interloper, was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book. He lives in Ajax, Ontario.