A Conversation with Donna Hemans

 By Norah Vawter

Donna Hemans, a Jamaican-born novelist, grew up in a small town off the Jamaican coast called Brown’s Town. At 16, she migrated to the United States, settling first in Brooklyn. She’s lived in the D.C. area since the 1990s, when she came to study creative writing at American University, earning her M.F.A. She now lives in Maryland and owns a co-working space for writers, The D.C. Writers Room, where she hosts literary events on occasion. Hemans has published three novels, most recently The House of Plain Truth. She was the winner of the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award for Adult Literature for her second novel, Tea by the Sea, and co-winner of the 2003-2004 Towson University Prize for Literature for her first novel, River Woman. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine, The Rumpus, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. Hemans serves on the board of PEN/Faulkner.

I sat down with Hemans to discuss her new novel, her fascination with Jamaican culture and history, and the themes she keeps returning to—including migration, colonialism, home, and belonging. The House of Plain Truth is Hemans’ third novel and was published on January 30, 2024. Hemans’ fiction is rich with emotional truth, intellectual themes, and lyrical prose.

The House of Plain Truth follows Pearline, a woman who left Jamaica decades ago to pursue the dream of success abroad—a dream she’s been desperate to make true for herself because it eluded her father’s aspirations. Having achieved modest success abroad, she returns, hoping to build a life in her homeland. Through the microcosm of Pearline’s family, we see the legacy of migration, slavery, and colonialism affecting Jamaica, as well as the fascinating family secrets, and subtly crafted characters.  

Migration is a prominent theme in Hemans’ work, and we talked about the impact of generations of Jamaicans going abroad. An estimated 1.3 million Jamaicans live abroad, over one third of the total population. Hemans is concerned about the impact on families and the culture and has published an essay on these themes and her own family’s history of migration within the context of Jamaica’s larger history. “One of the issues is what to do with the family land,” she told me. “You have people who are a generation out of slavery, who were able to buy land and build something for themselves for the first time, then a generation later, what they built is gone because the children and grandchildren have migrated. … There’s a connection that’s lost because if you follow that pattern, within another generation, there might be nobody [in the family] with any connection to the island, because circumstances have pushed so many people out.”

While you may expect the story to be about Jamaicans coming to America, Hemans flips that expectation. Though Pearline did settle in Brooklyn, the novel is focused on her parents’ time in Cuba from the 1910s to the 1930s. Hemans’ grandparents migrated to Cuba during this period, inspiring this plot. “Most of the literature about migration from the Caribbean is centered around movement to [the United States, Canada, or Britain]. But there was a significant bit of movement toward Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, and [to a lesser extent] other islands,” Hemans explains. After the construction of the Panama Canal ended, Cuba became a hub for migrant laborers who could make significantly higher wages by leaving home. “American companies were going into Cuba and buying up a lot of these sugarcane plantations. And they needed a workforce,” she said.

Despite the focus on leaving home, The House of Plain Truth takes place primarily in Jamaica. “A lot of the literature of the Caribbean is written about people who have left the Caribbean. And so the stories are usually set somewhere else. … I’ve been trying to look at and think about the people who are either left behind, or the people who stay, or in Pearline’s case, the people who go back,” Hermans said. Many Caribbean writers who wrote classic novels about their own immigrant experiences never repatriated, so they didn’t write about coming home. But that was often their plan, their dream. “Pearline says to her sisters, why is it that Jamaica is a place that you must always be going from, as opposed to a place that you should be coming back to? … There’s still life here, and that life can yet be lived, “ she told me.

Of course, if we want to understand the need for this mass migration, and the conditions that lead migrants to stay abroad, we need to think about the legacy of colonialism and slavery. In the book, Hemans shows colonialism living in ways we might not consider, like tourism. “Almost any new development is a hotel. So it feels as if you’re catering to somebody else, as opposed to catering to and building for the people who live there,” she explained. Because the best facilities and infrastructure exist in tourist hubs, where Jamaicans do not live, and many companies building these tourist destinations are not Jamaican .“It is very similar to colonial times or American imperialism … It continues, it’s just a different form. … You’re not serving your people. You’re serving someone else,” said Hemans.

Other themes that stood out were home and belonging. Hemans explains that she finds herself returning to these themes in her fiction, each time she writes a book. Mulling over why she’s interested in exploring ideas around home and belonging, she said, “I think this is probably the dilemma of most migrants. Where is home? And where do you belong? Because, depending on how you sound and how you look, that new country you’re in doesn’t fully accept you. And when you are back in your country [for many of the same reasons] the people don’t fully accept you. So you’re straddling both worlds.” 

Elaborating further, she said, “You’re not fully Jamaican. You’re American, but you’re not quite American. There is always this sense of ‘Who am I? And where do I really belong?” I believe that Hemans is quite adept at exploring these concepts in her fiction. When reading The House of Plain Truth, I found Pearline to be a fascinating character because she straddles both worlds. As a result of not quite belonging in either world, she has a unique perspective and an ability to see things about both worlds that others don’t. 

Though the book begins with a mystery and a call to adventure, Pearline does not immediately take off on this pursuit. It’s a quiet, reflective novel. “Memory was always a big part of [what I was trying to do with this novel]. Pearline’s father says, ‘You’re my memory now,” and so she has to be the bearer of the family’s stories. … I’ve just been fascinated by memory, by how we can move through the world with all of that baggage that we carry. Memory can be baggage, and it can also be freeing. … Is it something that [holds you in place or] frees you and allows you to move forward?” Hemans wondered.

Support independent bookstores by buying a copy of The House of Plain Truth from Politics and Prose or your favorite local indie bookstore.

If you’re interested in reading more Caribbean literature, check out the author’s recommendations for books by other Caribbean writers:

The God of Good Looks by Breanne Mc Ivor

The Last Warner Woman by Kei Miller

Donna Hemans is the author of two previous novels, River Woman and Tea By the Sea, which won the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award. She is also the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers based in Washington, DC. Born in Jamaica, she lives in Maryland, and received her MFA from American University. Follow her on X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram.

Norah Vawter is DCTRENDING’s local author’s editor, a freelance writer/editor, and a novelist. She is represented by Victress Literary, has an M.F.A. from George Mason, and lives in Northern Virginia. Follow Norah on Twitter @norahvawter, where she shares words and works of local writers every Friday.