Clarine Stephenson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clarine Stephenson was a Jamaican novelist and poet,[1] one of the first women writers in Jamaica.[2]
Stephenson's novel Undine tells the story of a Jamaican governess, described in the novel as a "creole child of wealth, reared in the midst of luxury and idleness".[3] Forced to return to Jamaica to work as a governess, she escapes the dust of the city and falls in love with an Englishman. The Jamaican countryside is idealised as an "Eden", the "sweet dreamland of these happy hills".[4] After having her heart broken, she dies, having a vision of her former lover as Jesus Christ.[3] Kim Robinson-Walcott has remarked the fact that the novel features no black characters.[5]
