On a Caribbean island in the mid-1960s, a young girl copes with the heavy cost of migration.

When her mother sails to England to find work, Wheeler and her older sisters are left behind on their Caribbean island with their aunts and cousins. Though her sisters look after her with varying levels of patience, Wheeler couldn’t feel more alone. She does her best to navigate uncertain rules about where and with whom she spends her time, but the tensions in the family home only seem to grow more opaque—and more threatening. Everyone tells her that soon her mother will send for her, but how long will it be, and why does it feel like there’s no one looking out for her at all?

A story of sisterhood, secrets, and the sacrifices of love, The Pages of the Sea is a tenderly lyrical portrait of innocence and a heartbreaking evocation of what it’s like to be a child left behind.

Anne Hawk's profile page

A former teacher, Anne Hawk was born in 1961 and grew up in the Caribbean, London, and Canada. The Pages of the Sea is her first novel.

Praise for The Pages of the Sea

“The Pages of the Sea a beautifully written and intimately imagined debut novel coming out of the Caribbean. Anne Hawk weaves a story rarely told, that of those left behind in the wake of migration to the ‘motherland’. Intensely moving and lyrical, here is a story of our times, another piece of the mosaic of our fractured and remade Caribbean lives.”
—Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch

“What can I say except I think this is a great novel? The story breaks your heart and, at the very same time, the writing heals it. Anne Hawk’s vision is miraculously, tenderly lucid. Here is the other side of emigration—the story of one of those left behind representing the stories of so many. I can’t think of a better depiction of the confusions and insights of girlhood.”
—Toby Litt, author of Patience