Hi, I'm Lava Burton and this is Lava Burton Reads.

In every episode I hand pick a different piece of short fiction and I read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

I don't always get to speak or connect with the authors of the stories I read on the podcast,

but I always love it when I do.

And for today's story, I knew I had to speak to its author, Barbara Jenkins.

Now Barbara Jenkins was born in Trinidad.

She studied and lived in Wales and returned to Trinidad in the early 70s.

She has had the kind of life that quite frankly I want.

She's had multiple careers and after spending many years as a geography teacher, she got into

writing in 2008 at the age of 66.

And writing was clearly one of the things she was meant to do.

She since won multiple awards for her fiction, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

This particular story was shortlisted for that prize in 2013.

It's called a Good Friday and it's set in her home country of Trinidad.

Now when I called up Barbara, I wanted to know a couple of things.

Number one, could she guide me in doing a convincing or at least honorable Trinidadian accent?

And number two, I was very curious about some of the references in the story which were

lost on me as an American and I wanted some guidance.

We opened this story on Yaboy Carlis, kind of a playboy character who was reflecting

on an encounter or a relationship that he had years ago.

He's thinking about a particular Good Friday, the Friday before Easter.

...