When We Were Birds

When We Were Birds (2022) by the Trinidadian writer Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is a lyrical, magical-realist novel about death, love and inheritance, set in a fictional Caribbean city. It interweaves two lives: Yejide St Bernard, the latest in a line of women who can commune with and guide the dead, and who are bound to the corbeaux (the black vultures); and Darwin, a young Rastafarian man who breaks the deepest taboo of his faith by leaving his rural home to work as a gravedigger in the city. Their meeting at the great cemetery of Fidelis brings the worlds of the living and the dead together.

Setting

The novel is set in and around Port Angeles, a fictional Caribbean city closely based on Port of Spain, Trinidad. Its two poles are Morne Marie, the ancient hilltop house of the St Bernard women, 'a house that build from blood and ash', and the sprawling city cemetery of Fidelis, where Darwin digs graves. Banwo writes in a rich Trinidadian Creole that roots the story in a vivid, specific Caribbean world.

The central movement

As Yejide's difficult, powerful mother Petronella dies, Yejide must reluctantly inherit the family's sacred gift of tending the dead. At the same time Darwin, having broken his Rasta vows, the razor, the locks, the dead, to find work, begins his strange new life among the graves at Fidelis. The two are drawn together, and against a backdrop of grief, family secrets and a violent threat to the cemetery and its dead, their love grows into a mutual saving: she guides the dead, and he becomes her 'anchor' to the living.

Why it matters for the exam

For Cambridge IGCSE you must analyse how Banwo creates meaning: her blending of realism and Caribbean folklore (magical realism), her dual narrative, her lyrical Creole voice, and her exploration of death, love, faith and inheritance. This guide gives you the plot, characters, themes, context, style, key passages, a quotation bank and full essay practice, with constant attention to the writer's craft.