An expatriate at home: Dominicas Elma Napier

In 1958 Jamaican novelist and teacher Sylvia Wynter named Jamaican Ada Quayle as the first West Indian woman novelist.' Quayle's novel, The Mistress, which Wynter terms 'a competent historical piece', leans heavily upon stereotypic West Indian figures of the profligate planter, the beautiful mulatto and the faithful black servant. Its themes of lust, avarice and cruelty seem designed for the colourful jacket of a popular papercover edition, and, indeed, The Mistress appeared in a papercover issue in 1961 (London: Four Square Books).