Writers retell Shakespeare's Tempest to explore colonialism and power

*Originally published on October 19, 2021.

When Elizabeth Nunez first read Shakespeare's late play The Tempest, she was 12 years old living in pre-independence Trinidad. 

She vividly remembers reading the scene where Prospero, the European man who has claimed ownership of an isolated island and enslaved its original inhabitant Caliban, accuses Caliban of attempting to rape his white daughter Miranda. 

"He tells Caliban he's ungrateful. He has taught Caliban about the moon and the stars, and he's taught him language. And what does he get in return, in gratitude? Caliban, he says, belongs to a vile race. So it was a waste of time to treat him with kindness. Better to beat people of that vile race into submission," Nunez said. 

"Imagine me now sitting in my colonial class with my white teachers ... Should I be grateful to England for educating me? Does my dark skin mean I belong to the same vile race as Caliban? And why does Prospero choose this time, 12 years after he has been on the island, to accuse Caliban of attempting to rape his daughter? Is it possible that during those 12 years, Caliban and Miranda would have become friends?"

Years later, those same questions inspired Nunez's novel Prospero's Daughter, which is set in 1961 Trinidad. 

British novelist Marina Warner also retold The Tempest to explore questions of colonialism and power — but from a different vantage point. 

"I had a shock, because my father was very proud of our Trinidadian connections, and when he died in 83, I inherited a lot of books about Trinidad, which he had put together. And I began browsing them, and then I realized that the Warners had been sugar planters and slave owners," she said. "I wanted to wrestle with this."

Warner's novel Indigo takes place in two time periods. One strand of the novel, set in postwar London, "takes in the Windrush generation, struggles for justice, equality, independence from the mother country and the emergence of multicultural Britain," said Warner.

The other strand of the novel reimagines the moment of colonial encounter in the 17th century. 

"I revisit The Tempest, its imagery, its magic. But I reimagined the characters and the island, as it might have been before the landing of the strangers," Warner said. 

"Indigo was written 30 years ago, and it was written in the spirit of a feminist mantra to listen to the voices of those who have been muted by history. It's like trying to see the action behind the stage behind the facade, which is the received story. And at the time, I was owning up to my forebears' actions and the obscured legacy of empire building and brutality."

Nunez, Warner and Stratford Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino spoke with IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed about what The Tempest has to say to us today about colonialism, reparations and forgiveness.

This is the second episode in the 2021 edition of IDEAS at Stratford, a long-running project produced in collaboration with the Stratford Festival in Ontario. The focus this year is "Shakespeare's Novels" — all about novels that have been inspired by a Shakespeare play. 
 

Guests in this episode:

Elizabeth Nunez is a Trinidanian-American novelist and Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College, the City University of New York. She's the author of eight novels and winner of the American Book Award. Her novel Prospero's Daughter, which reimagines The Tempest in pre-independence Trinidad, was published in 2006. 

Dame Marina Warner is a writer of fiction, criticism and history; her works include novels and short stories as well as studies of art, myths, symbols and fairytales. She's professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London. Her novel Indigo, which reimagines The Tempest and reckons with her family's colonial history, was published in 1992. 

Antoni Cimolino is the artistic director of the Stratford Festival, North America's largest classical repertory theatre company. In 2013, his first season as Artistic Director, Cimolino introduced The Forum, a season-long series of events illuminating the themes of the playbill and illustrating their relevance in today's world. 

* This episode was produced by Philip Coulter and Pauline Holdsworth.