Edgell at "Woman of the Year" event, US Ambassador's home in Belmopan, Belize Photo credit Holly Edgell

Zee Edgell is the first Belizean author to see her work reach an international audience. Her first novel, Beka Lamb, has become a classic of Caribbean literature. Generations of people in the Caribbean have read the novel as part of their high school literature curricula. The book has been translated into German and is taught at universities in the United States and around the world.

As a professor of English at Kent State University, Edgell taught creative writing and literature students to graduate and undergraduate students.

In 2009 she and her husband, Al Edgell, moved to St. Louis after retiring. Their children and grandchildren all live in the city.

Zee Edgell received an MBE from Queen Elizabeth II in 2007, for her services to literature and the community. She received an honorary doctorate in literature from the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados in 2009.

 

The Festival of San Joaquin
Click to order via Amazon.com

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Macmillan Caribbean (January 2, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0230029914
ISBN-13: 978-0230029910
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches

Marina, cleared of a murder charge for taking the life of her brutal husband, is released from prison on a three-year probation. Determined to rebuild her life and gain custody of her children, she is sustained by mother love and faith in God as she fights against the poverty, guilt, vanity and vengeance which threaten to overwhelm her.In this novel, set in the Mestizo community in Belize, Zee Edgell explores with sensitivity and understanding the contradictory and secret territory that is domestic violence.

 

Time and the River
Click to order via Amazon.com

Paperback: 206 pages
Publisher: Heinemann/Harcourt (January 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0435215183
ISBN-13: 978-0435215187
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches

This is a new addition to the "Caribbean Writers Series" from award-winning author, Zee Edgell. "Time and the River" is about freedom and slavery, hope and betrayal. It tells the story of people who don't won their own land or time, or even their own bodies. Leah Lawson is the daughter of a slave owner and a slave woman in Belize. In dreaming of a better future, Leah must make some difficult choices. Her life takes drastic turns, change her from slave into mistress, and forcing her to take the lives of her family and best friend into her own hands.

 

In Times Like These
Click to order via Amazon.com

Paperback: 307 pages
Publisher: Heinemann (October 3, 1991)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0435989278
ISBN-13: 978-0435989279
Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches

Pavana Leslie returns with her children to her homeland of Belize after many years abroad, and must fight to come to terms with the ghosts of her past.

 

 

Beka Lamb
Click to order via Amazon.com

Paperback: 171 pages
Publisher: Heinemann (September 11, 1986)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0435988441
ISBN-13: 978-0435988449
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches

Winner of the 1982 Fawcett Society Book Prize

Set in Belize, Beka Lamb is the record of a few months in the life of Beka and her family. The politics of the small colony, the influence of the matriarchal society and the dominating presence of the Catholic Church are woven into the fabric of the story to provide a compelling portrait of ordinary life in Belize.

 

 

 

 

Related Links

Official Website