Black Orchids – Gillian Slovo

One of the two novels read during our ten days at Corrie Craggie this May, Black Orchids starts in pre-Independence Ceylon where young Englishwoman, Evelyn, and Emil, eldest son of a wealthy Sinhalese family, fall in love. Married, and with their son Milton, they travel to England, where the romance flounders in the face of 1950s racism. Following a loveless affair, Evelyn disappears – leaving the later section to be narrated by Milton, now employed in his father’s business but drinking heavily and feeling an unloved failure.

Publisher page: Black Orchids – Gillian Slovo