Caribbean writing - past and present

Anthony, Michael [Trinidad]

All that glitters

Heinemann, 1996

Brown, Stewart & Wickham, John (ed)

The Oxford book of Caribbean short stories [SS]

Oxford, 1999

The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories is pan-Caribbean, ranging beyond the Anglophone territories to include stories originally published in Spanish, French and Dutch. Included are stories by V.S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Chamoiseau, Patrick [Martinique]

Solibo magnificent

Granta, 2000

Clarke, Maeve [Jamaica]

Give us the money [SKILLS]

Oxford, 2001

What goes round

Tindal Street Press, 2003

For lovers of Caribbean literature, this novel gives a humorous, character-packed account of a man's return back home to Jamaica with his teenage daughter.

D'Aguiar, Fred [Guyana/UK]

Bethany Bettany

Vintage, 2004

Bethany is five years of age when her father dies and her mother flees. As the family scapegoat she suffers, retreats into silence and listens to the adult conversation around her. Set in Guyana, Bethany becomes a symbol of a nation searching to make itself whole again.

Bloodlines

Chatto & Windus, 2000/Vintage, 2001

Moving from the American Civil War to the present day, this novel-in-verse follows the lives of five characters: Tom and Stella, runaway slaves who help others escape; Faith, a slave and her white lover Christy, and their son, our narrator.

Feeding the ghosts

Chatto & Windus, 1997/Vintage, 1998

Based on the true story of a slave ship crew who decide to throw all the slaves overboard and claim the insurance money, this moving novel tells how one man survives and conveys the truth to us in this fictionalised account of the event.

Danticat, Edwidge [Haiti/USA]

The farming of bones

Abacus, 1999 / 2000

This is a haunting and horrific tale of Amabelle Desir, a young Haitian domestic working across the border in the Dominican Republic. Set in 1937, a time when racial tension ran high, this second novel blends historical accuracy with powerful prose.

Fuller, Vernella [UK]

Unlike normal women

Women's Press, 1995

Hannah, Barbara [Jamaica?]

Joseph: a Rasta reggae fable

MacMillan Caribbean, 2006

Jones, Evan [Jamaica]

Alonso and the drug baron

MacMillan Caribbean, 2006

Kincaid, Jamaica [Antigua/USA]

Mr Potter

Chatto & Windus, 2002/Vintage, 2003

Kincaid's first obsession, the island of Antigua, comes to life under the gaze of Mr Potter, an illiterate taxi chauffeur who makes his living along the roads that pass the only towns he has ever seen and the graveyard where he will be buried.

Lovelace, Earl [Trinidad ]

Salt

Faber & Faber, 1996

Salt explores the complexities of the still young Trinidad where the roles of slave and land-owner still linger. Earl Lovelace is one of the pre-eminent novelists of the Caribbean, and in this novel he questions the nature of liberty and nationhood.

McKay, Claude [Jamaica/USA]

Home to Harlem

X Press, 2000

Markham, E.A [Montserrat]

At home with Vanessa

Tindal Street Press, 2006

Meet me in Mozambique: stories

Tindal Street Press, 2005

A collection of short pieces, spanning a lifetime of travel and writing, this volume of stories from E.A. Markham recalls the racist London of the 1950s, the political idealism of the 1960s, and models of black independence in Ghana, Nigeria and Mozambique.

Melville, Pauline [Guyana/UK]

Shape-shifter

Bloomsbury, 2000

To describe Shape-Shifter as stories on West Indian themes gives no clue to their range. Similarly to indicate that they are as far apart as London and the Caribbean is unhelpful. They are as various as the legendary magician of the title.

Phillips, Caryl [St.Kitts/UK]

Dancing in the dark

Secker & Warburg, 2005 / Vintage 2006

After a career spent playing African 'savages' in white companies, Bert Williams slowly felt degraded by his situation, turning to drink in order to ease the pain of his predicament. This novel is based on the story of his life, at a time when racism was normal and political correctness a foreign theory.

A distant shore

Secker & Warburg, 2003 / Vintage, 2004

Commonwealth Writers Prize 2004

Dorothy has taken early retirement and walked away from a bad marriage, an affair gone sour and a dangerous obsession. She moves to a small English village where she soon learns that England itself is changing beyond measure as the world outside its borders encroaches and intrudes.

The final passage

Vintage, c.2004

'The Final Passage' tells the story of Leila, a nineteen-year-old woman living on a small Caribbean island in the 1950s. Her subsequent passage to England brings her face to face with the consequences of the decisions she has made.

Ross, Jacob (ed.)

A way to catch the dust and other stories

Mango Publishing, 1999

A collection of stories about ordinary people caught in extraordinary moments, including a girl who learns the nature of friendship and betrayal when she survives an attempt on her life, and an old man who confronts the past in the shape of a girl who emerges from a storm.