Volcano, by Yvonne Weekes

Back in 2008, this piece of creative nonfiction blew me away: it’s a heart-rending, four-page glimpse of the devastation wrought on Montserrat by the Soufriere hills in the mid-1990s; I felt her unfathomable despair as I watched her friends leave and her world turn black.

It made such an impression on me that I when I found out, eight years later, that it was an excerpt from a full-length memoir of the same title, I bought and devoured it in one day. Still, I recalled the more succinct narrative packing more punch, so I dug it up and re-read it.

The four-pager is more intense because it’s not an exact lift; it’s some of the most powerful, grief-infused paragraphs from several pages throughout the book made into a haunting piece in its own right.

I recommend reading both.

Full Memoir: Volcano, by Yvonne Weeks: https://amzn.com/184523037X

Excerpt: Stories from Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad https://amzn.com/1580051391