Beka Lamb
| Author | Zee Edgell |
|---|---|
| Country |  Belize |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical, Young adult novel |
| Publisher | Heinemann (Caribbean Writers Series) |
| Publication date | 1982 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 172 pp (paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0-435-98844-9 |
| Followed by | In Times Like These |
Beka Lamb is the debut novel from Belizean writer Zee Edgell, published in 1982 as part of the Heinemann Caribbean Writers Series. It won the Fawcett Society Book Prize in 1983 and was one of the first novels from Belize to gain international recognition.
Background
Edgell went to a Catholic high school, St. Catherine's Academy, as a child (she graduated), then later taught there. In the novel, Toycie's boyfriend Emilio Villanueva also attends a Catholic high school, the boys-only St. Anthony's Jesuit College, based on the real-life, Jesuit-run St. John's College High School in Belize City. Catholicism is a featured subject in the novel.
The real life incident which is featured in and bookends the novel features then PUP members Phillip Goldson and Leigh Richardson. After avoiding a libel suit in 1950 by apologizing (they had been writing for the Belize Billboard), they were sued again in October 1951 and sentenced to twelve months in jail (Vernon, "A History of Political Parties in Belize"). To protect their identities in the novel, their names are given as Pritchad and Gladsen.
Plot summary
Fourteen year old Beka, a repeating first form (9th grade) student at St. Cecilia's Academy in Belize City, British Honduras, wins a prize from the Sisters of Charity (akin to the real-life Sisters of Mercy) for writing an essay detailing their history in the Central American colony. At home later that night, as her grandmother leaves to attend a political meeting in town called following the arrests of two local politicians for sedition, Beka begins to recall the circumstances that got her to this point, beginning with failing first form earlier that year and unsuccessfully attempting to lie to her parents about it. After a holiday at St. George's Caye (where the two girls playfully parody the political meetings being held in town by having Toycie singing Land of the Gods, later Belize's national anthem Land of the Free, and Beka making a speech) and the unexpected death of her great-grandmother in Belize City, Beka is allowed to return to school, even while contemplating a future of being confined to domestic duties and unhappiness if she does not succeed. Worse yet, her older best friend Toycie Qualo, who lives down the street with her aunt, has mysteriously gotten pregnant and desperately needs Beka's help. How Beka confronts these circumstances and triumphs represents Edgell's first-hand view of life in the colonial outpost in the 1950s, presumably when the story is set.
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