“A thrilling, gripping, moving book about love, desire, and making something of one’s life…written in some of the most beautifully lyrical and clear prose I’ve read in a very long time”
Amanda Smyth is Irish-Trinidadian and was born in Ireland. She spent long summers in Trinidad with her mother, who told her the true story of the Dome fire of 1928 that led to one of the worst oil disasters in the history of Trinidad’s oil business. This tragic tale inspired Fortune. Amanda is the author of Black Rock (2009) and A Kind of Eden (2013). Black Rock (which was Amanda’s debut novel), won the Prix du Premier Roman prize, was nominated for an NAACP award, for the McKitterick Prize and selected as an Oprah Winfrey Summer Read. Amanda teaches creative writing at Arvon, Skyros in Greece, and at Coventry University. She lives in Leamington Spa with her family.
Her novel Fortune, which was published by Peepal Tree Press in July 2021, was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. You can read about it here.
About Fortune
Eddie Wade has recently returned from the US oilfields. He is determined to sink his own well and make his fortune in the 1920s Trinidad oil-rush. His sights are set on Sonny Chatterjee’s failing cocoa estate, Kushi, where the ground is so full of oil you can put a stick in the ground and see it bubble up. When a fortuitous meeting with businessman Tito Fernandez brings Eddie the investor he desperately needs, the three men enter into a partnership. A friendship between Tito and Eddie begins that will change their lives forever, not least when the oil starts gushing. But their partnership also brings Eddie into contact with Ada, Tito’s beautiful wife, and as much as they try, they cannot avoid the attraction they feel for each other.
Fortune, based on true events, catches Trinidad at a moment of historical change whose consequences reverberate down to present concerns with climate change and environmental destruction. As a story of love and ambition, its focus is on individuals so enmeshed in their desires that they blindly enter the territory of classic Greek tragedy where actions always have consequences.
You can order the book here.