Streets of conflict

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Streets of conflict

Silhouettes of a man and a woman with Rio de Janeiro's Sugarloaf Mountain and harbor behind them.

About this item

Title:: Streets of conflict

Identifier:: PR9272.9.A5S771976

Permalink:: https://n2t.net/ark:/81984/d38v99

Type:: Image

Notes:: Royston Edwards was the jacket designer. Anthony's fourth novel is set in Rio de Janeiro during a wave of student rioting. The novel is significantly more political than his earlier work, raising political, economic, and racial issues in the dialogue. The central character is a school teacher, a Trinidadian woman named Marisa, while working for school owner Mac, draws "two young Trinidadian visitors to Rio," Craig and Alvin, "into awareness of the city's life." The less worldly Craig, after falling in love with Marisa, is incapable of restrainedly handling his strong feelings both for her and his new city. Alvin, on the other hand, develops his relationship "more slowly and naturally," allowing it to be both meaningful and viable. Behind this love triangle, we witness Mac, with an ideological companion Ilka, increasingly in support of the student movement. Although he draws Marisa and Alvin near the fray, they are able to walk away; the immature Craig is not so discerning but does escape Mac's fate by leaving the morass behind and returning to Trinidad. By the end, the police have shot Mac to death amidst the upheaval they are charged with quelling, leaving the reader with something of a morality tale about the consequences of hysterical politics. The plot raises questions about the confluence of sexual and political maturity, even the possibility that although the issues are real, sometimes responses are immoderate. Anthony based his work on his own experiences in Brazil; he lived there from 1968-1970 as a member of Trinidad's diplomatic corps. In Streets, he fictionalizes several people with whom he spent time during the 1969 student riots. In this fictional space, he treats these individuals with a fascination that survived the political climax in Rio and his following departure. It is worth noting his declaimer at the beginning of the text, acknowledging the forthcoming critical evaluation of the riots while insisting that "there is no intention whatsoever to criticize the Brazilian regime." Despite his earlier critical success, Streets of Conflict was not well-received; it was judged as too explicit an attempt at social commentary and inconsistent with the simplicity of style and structure that characterized his earlier works. Disheartened by the novel's poor reception, he took some time after 1976. With All That Glitters, Michael Anthony reclaimed the narrative style and thematic material that made him popular. Although practically unknown in the rest of the English-speaking world, his reputation in the Caribbean grew exponentially as he continued to publish.