In honour of those who came to the UK in the last century and brought with them a rich cultural heritage and helped to make Britain what it is today, we celebrate Windrush Day with 8 of our favourite Caribbean authors.
The Island of Forgetting – Jasmine Sealy
In this compelling debut, an unknowable legacy passes through generations of one family living on the beautiful island of Barbados.
There is Iapetus, a lonely soul haunted by the memory of his father; his son Atlas, dreaming of a life far removed from his reality; Atlas’s daughter Calypso, struggling to find her place in an unforgiving society; and her son Nautilus, grappling with various parts of a complex identity.
Each longs to escape their circumstances but find themselves trapped by a history found only in whispers and half-remembered fragments. And with every passing decade, another generation must contend with the same question: how can the things we don’t know define our futures?
Spanning fifty years, The Island of Forgetting is a powerful saga of family and hope that marks the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.
Patsy yearns to escape the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised for a new life in New York and the chance to start afresh. Above all, she hopes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, and to rekindle their young love. But spreading her wings will come at a price: she must leave her five-year-old daughter, Tru, behind. And Patsy is soon confronted by the stark reality of life as an undocumented migrant in a hostile city.
Expertly evoking the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms and lilting patois of Jamaica, Patsy weaves between the lives of Patsy and Tru as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another.
Daring, tender and profound, this is the story of one woman’s fight to discover her sense of self in a world that tries to define her, and of the lasting threads of love stretching across years and oceans.
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House – Cherie Jones
In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister, a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers.
For Wilma, it’s the story of a wilful adventurer, who ignores the warnings of those around her, and suffers as a result.
When Lala grows up, she sees it offers hope – of life after losing a baby in the most terrible of circumstances and marrying the wrong man.
And Mira Whalen? It’s about keeping alive, trying to make sense of the fact that her husband has been murdered, and she didn’t get the chance to tell him that she loved him after all.
A powerful, intense story of three marriages, and of a beautiful island paradise where, beyond the white sand beaches and the wealthy tourists, lies poverty, menacing violence and the story of the sacrifices some women make to survive.
When We Were Birds – Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Darwin is a down-on-his-luck gravedigger, newly arrived in the Trinidadian city of Port Angeles to seek his fortune, young and beautiful and lost. Estranged from his mother and the Rastafari faith she taught him, he is convinced that the father he never met may be waiting for him somewhere amid these bustling streets.
Meanwhile in an old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. And she is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: the power to talk to the dead. The women of Yejide’s family are human but also not – descended from corbeau, the black birds that fly east at sunset, taking with them the souls of the dead.
Darwin and Yejide both have something that the other needs. Their destinies are intertwined, and they will find one another in the sprawling, ancient cemetery at the heart of the island, where trouble is brewing…
Rich with magic and wisdom, When We Were Birds is an exuberant masterpiece that conjures and mesmerises on every line. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo weaves an unforgettable story of loss and renewal, darkness and light; a triumphant reckoning with a grief that runs back generations and a defiant, joyful affirmation of hope.
A House For Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
Mr Biswas has been told since the day of his birth that misfortune will follow him – and so it has. Meaning only to avoid punishment, he causes the death of his father and the dissolution of his family.
Wanting simply to flirt with a beautiful woman, he ends up marrying her. But in spite of endless setbacks, Mr Biswas is determined to achieve independence, and so he begins the gruelling struggle to buy a home of his own.
Heart-rending and darkly comic, V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas has been hailed as one of the twentieth century’s finest novels, a classic that evokes a man’s quest for autonomy against the backdrop of post-colonial Trinidad.
People Person – Candice Carty-Williams
If you could choose your family, you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons
Dimple, Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie and Prynce are half-siblings who don’t have much in common except abandonment issues. But when a catastrophic event forces them to reconnect with each other and with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things start to get complicated fast . . .
People Person is a propulsive story of heart, humour and homecoming, about the true nature of family and the complexities of belonging.
Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson
Eleanor Bennett won’t let her secrets die with her . . .
When Eleanor’s estranged children Benny and Byron reunite for her funeral, they receive an unexpected inheritance. First, a traditional Caribbean black cake, to remind them of their roots. Second, the story of a decades-old murder that shatters everything they thought they knew about their mother.
But as Benny and Byron unravel their family’s troubled past, will the truth push them further apart? Or will it reunite them and fulfil Eleanor’s final wish?
An extremely assured debut which pulls in threads and echoes from across the Caribbean diaspora to deliver a rich, complex and really satisfying novel.
Love After Love – Ingrid Persaud
Meet the Ramdin-Chetan family: forged through loneliness, broken by secrets, saved by love.
Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household. Happy in their differences, they build a home together. Home: the place keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world – until the night when a glass of rum, a heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit, driving them apart.
Brave and brilliant, steeped in affection, Love After Love offers hope to anyone who has loved and lost and has yet to find their way back.