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International Education Week 2022: Caribbean

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

Lucy

by Jamaica Kincaid | Antigua and Barbuda

Lucy has left the West Indies for a job in New York, but she discovers that her employers' perfect lives are not what they seem.

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

A Small Place

by Jamaica Kincaid | Antigua & Barbuda

As she bears witness to the sweeping corruption, dilapidated buildings and shameful legacy of Antigua's colonial past, the author compels us to think about the people behind the beautiful landscape of this tiny island.

God's Angry Babies by Ian Strachan

God’s Angry Babies

by Ian G. Strachan | Bahamas

This coming-of-age novel, traces the lives of Tree Bodies and his three brothers as they grow up in the streets of Pompey Village, an area of extreme poverty hidden from the tourists who populate the luxury hotels. Creole conversation lends a distinct flavour.

Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

Redemption in Indigo

by Karen Lord | Barbados

A re-telling of a Senegalese folktale. Paama is presented with a gift from the undying ones: the Chaos Stick, which allows her to manipulate the subtle forces of the world.

Dancing to Almendra by Mayra Montero

Dancing to "Almendra"

by Mayra Montero | Cuba

Havana, 1957. On the same day that a Mafia capo is assassinated in a barber’s chair in New York, a hippopotamus escapes from the Havana zoo and is shot and killed by its pursuers. Assigned to cover the zoo story, a young Cuban journalist instead finds himself embroiled in the mysterious connections between the hippo’s death and the mobster’s when a secretive zookeeper whispers to him that he “knows too much.”

The Orchid House by Phyllis Shand Allfrey

The Orchid House

by Phyllis Shand Allfrey | Dominica

Lally helps to raise three white sisters in the Orchid House on the Island of Dominica and observes as each flees to the cold northern lands of England and America only to return to their magical past and the man they love.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao

by Junot Diaz | Dominican Republic

Oscar, an overweight Dominican from a New Jersey ghetto, dreams of becoming a writer and finding love, but Fuku, the curse has haunted his family for generations, may well prevent him from attaining his desires.

The Colour of Forgetting by Merle Collins

The Colour of Forgetting

by Merle Collins | Grenada

The novel focuses on Carib, a woman whose voice is a monument to the bravery of her forgotten Carib ancestors. Regarded as mad by the islanders, she stimulates the remembering of their intricate history thereby helping their understanding of the spirits living inside of them.

I am a Japanese Writer by Dany Laferrière

I am a Japanese Writer

by Dany Laferrière | Haiti

A black writer from Montreal sells a book with only a title; when he can't write the story and starts living it he becomes a celebrity until things start to go wrong.

An Untamed State by Roxanne Gay

An Untamed State

by Roxane Gay | Haiti

Mireille Duval Jameson is a rich and self-assured Haitian woman who is kidnapped by a gang of heavily armed men. Held captive by a man who calls himself the Commander, Mireille must endure his torment until her unwilling father pays up.

The Book of Night Women

by Marlon James | Jamaica

Lilith was born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they--and she--will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings and desires and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman in Jamaica, and risks becoming the conspiracy's weak link.

Another Life by Derek Walcott

Another Life

by Derek Walcott | Saint Lucia

One of the best long autobiographical poems.

Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips

Crossing the River

by Caryl Phillips | St. Kitts and Nevis

A story about three black people during different time periods and in different continents as they struggle with the separation from their native Africa. The novel follows Nash, who travels from America to Africa to educate natives about Christ; Martha, an old woman who attempts to travel from Virginia to California to escape the injustices of being a slave; and Travis, a member of the U.S. military who goes to England during World War II

Return to Arcadia by H. Nigel Thomas

Return to Arcadia

by H. Nigel Thomas | Saint Vincent & the Grenadines

When Joshua Éclair emerges from amnesia in a psychiatric hospital in Montreal, he must explore what makes him want to erase his identity. In the painful process that follows, he is forced to relive his past in the fictional Caribbean island of Isabella, and learns to forgive.

A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul

A House for Mr. Biswas

by V. S. Naipaul | Trinidad and Tobago

Owning a small portion of the Trinidad earth and a respectable house of his own is the dream that sustains Mohun Biswas through a life of frustration and despair after he marries into the domineering Tulsi family.

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

by Monique Roffey | Trinidad and Tobago

When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England, George is immediately seduced by the beguiling island, while Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, and ill-at-ease. As they adapt to new circumstances, their marriage endures for better or worse, despite growing political unrest and racial tensions that affect their daily lives. But when George finds a cache of letters that Sabine has hidden from him, the discovery sets off a devastating series of consequences as other secrets begin to emerge.

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