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Saturday, March 21, 2026
WOONSOCKET — Marcus Jansen, a senior at Beacon Charter High School for the Arts, says that his mother was the first person who inspired him to look at the world differently. “She used to read to me when I was a little kid, and she got me addicted to the idea of looking at art as something that would inspire me,” states Jansen, whose short story “Tropicalia” won first place in the annual Write Rhode Island short fiction contest.
When Jansen’s mother passed when he was in the 4th grade, he says that it would be easy to attribute his writing as something he did to reconnect with her. On a deeper level Jansen thinks this could be the case, but, as a writer, he is pragmatic; “When I was younger I used to role-play online, and that introduced me to approaching characters and prose.”
Jansen played the game as a kid would, before he found himself going “deeper and deeper. I was less interested in the actual play part of the game and focused on the writing part, and the skills that came from that. I always wanted to write.” Jansen mentions his cousin who always wrote, and how he thought that was the “coolest thing ever.”
As Jansen matured, he began hungering for more intellectually-stimulating sustenance. His award-winning short story, “Tropicália,” was influenced by artists such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kazuo Ishiguro, Haruki Murakami and Anton Chekhov. “Though, through all my inspirations, Lahiri was probably the single biggest influence on the story,” states Jansen.
“Tropicália” is about a chef, a Caribbean immigrant, who makes a restaurant resembling his culture. A critic comes along and, like the introduction of Sancho Panza in “Don Quixote,” the act of being perceived alerts the chef to his faux pas of cultural commodification.
“Through the settings it speeds you through a minute to minute crisis,” he says.
Jansen says he wrote the first draft in January of last year, and over the summer spent time editing it, writing the majority of the time at night. He is passionate about the theme of his story: an examination of capitalism, immigration, and culture.
Jansen states, “This story has been on my mind for so long. It is about the commodification of culture, how that relates to capitalism, and how the system forces people to move through life so quickly that they can’t realize what they are missing by only focusing on their goals and ambitions.”
It was inevitable, relates Jansen, that he would write “something that related to the feeling that you’re losing something, and that you don’t know the depth of what you’re losing until it’s unretrievable.”
Jansen is a second-generation immigrant, whose family came from St. Martin, which is the same place his main character is from. Jansen says he based a lot of this story off of the various immigrant people he knew and their juxtaposition with American culture. “The story is emblematic of how America indoctrinates people and forces them to look at their lives as a host of goals instead of something to be experienced in moments to remember, keep, and value.”
He also relates to the character he created, saying “I was only in St. Martin for a couple months, but like the main character I feel stuck in a restaurant I can’t leave. In the end he is stuck with the weight of his decisions.” Jansen’s family could always return to St. Martin, and connect with the land and the people there. He says he feels like “my only experience with St. Martin is through people’s stories; I based this story off someone like me who can’t really go home.”
“Tropicália” explores and attacks themes surrounding the Western capitalization of post-colonial diaspora. “People try to commercialize their heritage to feel connected to their home, but it is bastardizing their own culture,” states Jansen.
Write Rhode Island surprised Jansen with an award ceremony at the high school earlier this month. He says it was “very cool. I am very happy because I believe I worked so hard.”
Now that Jansen has won, he believes it will “influence me as an inspiration because it was something that I was recognized for. I think it will make me less apprehensive about publishing my work; and that spending time on something and working on something is worth it.” Jansen is planning on going to CCRI next year, and to continue reading, writing, and exploring big topics.
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