“Flying inna massa face”

Travel brochures for Dominica boast of its unspoilt nature. In fact, a recent National Geographic survey rated Dominica as one of the top islands and joint first in the Caribbean to visit (Discover Dominica Authority 2008). Unlike many of the other islands, its development was slower and so it was saved from the concrete gardens of tourists’ hotels, with their accompanying destruction of coastlines, coral reefs, mangrove swamps; or, as the narrative tells it, the island’s “backwardness had turned profitable, it was now called authentic and untouched” (John 2006: 230).