(A note of disclaimer: as detailed within the book, everyone knows everyone through someone in the islands, so I am glad to count Taz and Eddie as friends, so this review is certainly not without bias.)

Having just finished reading the final page of Sugar by Edward Narain & Tarryn Phillips, I have to say, it’s brilliant.

In case anyone who knows me has ever wondered, “what it’s been like spending all that time living in Fiji?” this is as good a proxy as you’re going to get for that experience. Anyone who has lived in Suva will understand it immediately and implicitly, and it will hit *hard*. It is a form of “hard” literary fiction, billed as an ethnographic novel, and not merely the product of authorial license.

I was discussing with my wife, Nakita, that with the exception of Mary Rokonadravu’s work, I haven’t read much that captures the character of Suva’s uniquely paced and spaced chaos with such vivid imagery. It successfully evokes the experience of the capital across the senses, peppered with details that make necessary nods to the nuances of life at all levels – especially the tastes.

Eddie and Taz additionally offer perspectives on the Fijian experience only accessible through experience both living within, and beyond, the Suva community. It is character-driven, and everything hits close. It has elements of gritty urban noir that cuts through the Bula! marketing veneer that Fiji props up along with all its coastal scenery. The nissology – study of islands on their own terms – is inherent in the nature of connectivity – both within the Suva community and the acknowledgement of different worlds that exist apart from the island experience in historic inter-generational reflections on India and contemporaneous circumstances in Australia.

This is definitely written with a broader audience in mind, and I would say this should be capstone fiction reading in the secondary curriculum for Fijian students to get them thinking about their identity, their role in relation to others, and what they think Fijian society would look like if they reflect on their own experience in writing.

Also, making sure this is available on the shelves in Fiji will be to the benefit of all, so I recommend Baka Books & Fiji Museum keep this in stock.

Sugar is available from the University of Toronto Press, linked here.