Myrtle Henry Sodhi

For readers of Homegoing and Frying Plantain, a stirring intergenerational saga stretching from the Caribbean to Canada where womanhood and mothering demands what the body wants to forget.

Woven together with folklore and memory, We've Been Here Before begins with the childhood stories of Lise-Rose, who struggles with speech and coming of age in a community anchored in both West African spirituality and the Catholic Church. Lise-Rose must choose either to follow the ancestral ways of her father, who is spiritually bound to the sea, or her mother, who has rooted herself in Catholicism. The path of her life changes, however, after an encounter with a shape-shifting figure from the village.

Like Lise-Rose's ancestors, her descendants struggle to honour ancestral knowledge while living on foreign lands. Margaux, Lise-Rose's great-granddaughter, embarks on a new life with her mother in Canada. Facing racism and isolation, they attempt to establish roots in a country that seems both limitless and oppressive.

Across generations, Sodhi explores how a woman reclaims a connection to her stories and ancestors while forging her own voice.