SOURCE: A review of the author's writing in Canadian Literature, No. 132, Spring, 1992, pp. 101-02.

In the following review, Birbalsingh gives a concise overview of Bissoondath's fiction.

One writer who should have no complaints about being neglected is Neil Bissoondath from Trinidad. From the appearance of his first book Digging up the Mountains, (1985) a collection of stories, Bissoondath has established himself as the most important South Asian writer of Indo-Caribbean origin, although he would reject such a label of himself, and claim that he is merely a Canadian writer. Since Digging up the Mountains, Bissoondath has written a novel A Casual Brutality (1988) and another collection of stories On the Eve of Uncertain Tomorrows (1990).

Bissoondath's writing stands out by its self-confidence and critical sharpness. The stories in his first volume, for instance, advance the view that after settling in the Caribbean for one hundred and fifty years, Indians may be...