Paradise Once: A Novel by Olive Senior | Taino Historical Fiction

PARADISE ONCE TRACES THE AFTERMATH of the massacre by Spanish forces of the fictional Maima village in Cuba in 1513. Some believe the destruction of Maima is the result of angering the cemíes―Taíno spiritual entities―when foreign practices, contrary to the sacred laws of the Taíno, began to infiltrate the village. Four young people who survive the massacre are unwittingly chosen by the cemíes to save a Sacred Bundle and return it to a cave in the Cauta mountain, the mythological place the Taíno are believed to have come from: Night Orchid, a young girl and the reluctant bearer of the Sacred Bundle; the young Taíno noble, Heart of Palm; Flint, whose mother is part of the “Old Ones,” a remnant group of people on the islands displaced by the Taíno; and Sekou, an enslaved African born in Spain who has aligned himself with the Taíno resistance. The four survivors start off on separate perilous paths and only learn of their roles in the sacred mission when they unite at the holy site and enc