| Guyana Novel: The Twisted Circle |
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the convent, I balked at the idea. To embark on a journey back to a time and place that caused me grief would require some meaningful purpose. The 2012 documentary film, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, that explores the first known public protest against clerical sex abuse in the US, gave me the impetus I needed. The Twisted Circle is inspired by real events that took place during my final year (1976-1977) in a Catholic convent in Guyana. Laced with jealousy, deception, and betrayal, it's a tale of a young woman's journey to self-determination. The plot unravels in the isolated rainforest of Guyana’s northwest region during the period of civil rebellion (1979-1980) against the authoritarian government which culminates in the assassination of the opposition socialist leader, Dr. Walter Rodney on June 13, 1980. The Jonestown Massacre in November 1978 in the same region seemed to unleash a bloodletting beast across the thirteen-year- old independent nation. Afraid that her religious superiors would deem her unworthy to take her perpetual vows, young Guyanese nun, Sister Barbara Lovell, leaves the coastal capital for the hinterlands to escape her groping parish priest, Father Andrew Peterson. In her jungle refuge, District Education Officer Douglas Simmons, a Don Juan, targets her as his next conquest. Sister Frances Adler, a white nun from Dayton, Ohio, is a professed sister and eight years older than Barbara. She was sent to the Guyana Mission to deal with her grief and guilt after the death of her brother, a Vietnam veteran. When Barbara joins the Santa Cruz convent, Frances views the beautiful, captivating local nun as a threat to her obsessive relationship with her British spiritual director and parish priest, Father Geoffrey Goodman. Both high school teachers at the Mabaruma Secondary School, located in the administrative center of Guyana's North West Region, the two nuns clash at school. When Barbara's thirteen-year-old student, Raven Mendonza, produces a twisted circle for his end-of-term art test, Barbara fails to understand its meaning. At the age of eight, Raven, the son of an indigenous Carib shaman, was molested by a British priest: a well-guarded secret among the sisters at the Santa Cruz convent. SETTING OF NOVEL The novel is rooted in the northwest region of Guyana, now known as the Barima- Waini Region, that extends from the Venezuela border to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the northeast. Numbering over 18,000 in 1980, the population of mostly Amerindians - Arawak, Carib, and Warrau - live in over 30 isolated villages along the banks of the rivers in the region. Learn more about Mabaruma, the administrative center or regional capital founded in 1890, in the video on the left panel. Of Amerindian origin, the name 'Mabaruma' means 'grater' used for grating the cassava (yuca, manioca), the staple food crop of the Amerindian population. Learn more about Amerindian production of cassava bread and the derivative food preservative, cassareep, in another video link provided on the left panel. |
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Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees
[religious teachers of his day]:
You who are like whitewashed tombs
that look handsome on the outside, but
inside are full of dead men’s bones and
every kind of corruption. In the same
way you appear to people from the
outside like good honest men, but inside
you are full of hypocrisy and
lawlessness.”
MATTHEW 23: 29-32
[religious teachers of his day]:
You who are like whitewashed tombs
that look handsome on the outside, but
inside are full of dead men’s bones and
every kind of corruption. In the same
way you appear to people from the
outside like good honest men, but inside
you are full of hypocrisy and
lawlessness.”
MATTHEW 23: 29-32
| LISTEN TO |
| LIVING ON THE FRONT LINE EDDY GRANT GUYANESE-BRITISH MUSICIAN [SONG RELEASED 1979] |
| RESEARCH RESOURCES FOR NOVEL THE TWISTED CIRCLE |
| MABARUMA SOJOURN DOCUMENTARY VIDEO AUGUST 28, 2009 DURATION: 8:31 MINUTES |
| INTRODUCTION TO PRODUCTION OF CASSAVA BREAD & CASSAREEP BARIMA-WAINI REGION OF GUYANA DOCUMENTARY VIDEO OCTOBER 22, 2009 DURATION 8:17 MINUTES |
| The Twisted Circle |
| Rosaliene Bacchus |
When my late friend and poet, Angela
Consolo Mankiewicz, told me that my
second novel had to be about my life in
Consolo Mankiewicz, told me that my
second novel had to be about my life in
