Book review - 'Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens' by Lynn Hutchison Lee

Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens is written from our Romani ancestral folk reperiben – memory - in the mode of the Olde Romani storytellers who rokka paramishus – tell our story. This is our instinctual, blood memory or native intelligence. Lee invites the reader into a ritual of remembering who we are, crucial to our heritage and Romani identity: especially imperative in light of subsequent rewriting of history that has judged us invisible.

Lee says that without the folk memory of our fowki, we are bee paniako - without water. Our natya - nature - is our disposition as human beings. Our language and rituals flow like water, intergenerationally from grandmother to mother to daughter. The contemporary conversation about water conservation of our wetlands – treating water respectfully and with gratitude – reflects our Romani heritage and identity, a bakhteriben - blessing - much like discovering the origins of desire.

The 1001 Tales of the Arabian Nights appear closer to the Romani method of oral storytelling. The storyteller knows hundreds, maybe thousands of motifs, and can piece them together in the moment of telling to create a long epic story. In this way Lee’s novella structure of mini chapters is well suited. For Romani, the Otherworld is a membrane away, with spirits and ghosts of pani raklies able to tell us their stories, with orchids as oracles, exerting justice.

About the author

Lynn Hutchison Lee is an award-winning author of Anglo-Romany descent on her father’s side. She was first place winner of the 2022 Joy Kogawa Award for Fiction. Her short fiction has been published in Wagtail: The Roma Women’s Anthology, Room and elsewhere. She is co-editor of Through the Portal: Stories from a Hopeful Distopia (Exile Edition). Following her novella, Nightshade her novel was shortlisted for the Guernica Prize to be released in June 2026. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her partner. Visit her online at Multidisciplinary Artist/Writer - Lynn Hutchinson Lee

By Frances Roberts Reilly, poet, harpist, storyteller, author of Parramisha: a Poetry Collection (Cinnamon Press) and Akekoi: A Romani Memoir (Guernica Editions  2026).