Beka Lamb

Blurb

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.
The book deals with social insecurity, racial prejudice and the rule of the consecutive church in a small town. Beka's best friend Toycie Qualo is older than she is, being 17 at the time when Beka was 14, and in her last year of school gets herself expelled when she gets into a situation where she becomes pregnant by her boyfriend Emilio Villanueva, and dies after a miscarriage and a short space of time in the local asylum nicknamed "Sea Breeze Hotel". Through flashbacks, points on politics and independence are strongly brought out, since the political struggles for independence in Belize at that time also mirrors Beka's own need for self-rule and her developing maturity. Beka's father cuts down Beka's favorite tree as a sign that the wild ways Beka had picked up must stop at once when she finally tells him that she has failed her exam.