Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

The Sun­day Arts Sec­tion's Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan reg­u­lar­ly re­views re­cent Caribbean books, mag­a­zines and jour­nals. These were some note­wor­thy books that crossed her desk this year.

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The Mer­chant of Feath­ers

Tanya Shirley

Peepal Tree Press, 2014

"The Mer­chant of Feath­ers is that rare col­lec­tion con­fi­dent enough in its pur­pose to make peace with its un­even­ness, al­most as if to de­clare that life fol­lows this un­bri­dled, messy topog­ra­phy, too–and so why not the po­ems that life prompts? Shirley's sec­ond book is a lush, well-con­tained tri­umph, one that both cel­e­brates and ad­mon­ish­es."

Dy­ing to Bet­ter Them­selves: West In­di­ans and the Build­ing of the Pana­ma Canal

Olive Se­nior

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Press, 2014

"Sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty is firm­ly but­tressed by a wealth of foot­notes, fig­ures, pho­tographs and oth­er il­lus­tra­tive ma­te­r­i­al. In­ter­spers­ing vi­su­al tes­ti­mo­ny gen­er­ous­ly in the body of her text ren­ders the read­ing a pris­mat­ic and en­gag­ing ex­pe­ri­ence: this is no tire­some slog through self-con­grat­u­la­to­ry aca­d­e­m­ic wa­ter. Se­nior es­says to do the op­po­site: to scrape any sem­blance of hubris clean from the man­u­script, and to let the work­ers them­selves do the talk­ing."

House of Ash­es

Monique Rof­fey

Si­mon & Shus­ter, 2014

"This is emo­tion­al­ly-charged fic­tive re­portage, a dizzy­ing­ly am­bi­tious treat­ment that in­evitably falls short, but has the as­sid­u­ous and req­ui­site strength to at least fall well.

In sen­si­tive, brave prose (marked by for­ays in­to repet­i­tive­ness), Rof­fey shows the read­er that hu­man an­i­mals all re­spond in es­sen­tial­ly the same ways, when star­ing down the steel bar­rel of their own fear. [....] What it gets un­de­ni­ably right is our pri­mor­dial re­sponse to ter­ror­ism."

Walk­ing with the An­ces­tors

An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh, 2013

"It's when Bisses­sars­ingh's text delves in­to the per­son­al that the read­ing zips along, avoid­ing the dread­ed pas­sive voice treat­ment. When the his­to­ri­an al­lows his own colour­ful, some­times-un­for­giv­ing in­ser­tions to pep­per his frames of ref­er­ence, the writ­ing ac­quires much-need­ed bursts of life. When he al­lows him­self spec­u­la­tions on the na­ture of some of the grave­yards' dear­ly de­part­ed, the con­clu­sions are of­ten wry­ly tongue in cheek. Com­ment­ing on Archdea­con Samuel LaRoque Richards' al­leged em­bez­zle­ment of In­di­an labour­ers' funds, the his­to­ri­an ob­serves that "of course he (Richards) was ex­on­er­at­ed, as it would have been bad for the im­age of colo­nial whites, had a white Bar­ba­di­an cler­gy­man been con­vict­ed of steal­ing from coolies."

This is one of the work's sub­tler mer­its: it avoids the mount­ing of ha­giogra­phies, de­spite the de­vout al­lure of ad­vice that cau­tions against speak­ing ill of the dead."

The Car­tog­ra­ph­er Tries to Map a Way to Zion

Kei Miller

Peepal Tree Press, 2013

"As a themed col­lec­tion, The Car­tog­ra­ph­er Tries to Map a Way to Zion works won­ders on any lit­er­ary dis­po­si­tion that's weary of too many re­cy­cled, gener­ic po­ems on odyssey and re­turn. Miller's fourth po­et­ry col­lec­tion re­tains ebul­lience even along­side de­pic­tions of great sor­row. You can come to this body of work for paeans to rub­ber ducks, and for lamen­ta­tions of the mas­ter's lash alike, both ren­dered with an im­mac­u­late sen­si­tiv­i­ty." (Miller won the �10,000 2014 For­ward Prize for this book–ed.)

Ora­cabessa

Lor­na Good­i­son

Car­canet Books, 2013

"Good­i­son's po­ems are not im­mune to the sug­ges­tion of mir­a­cles to adorn a hu­man life. Steer­ing clear of a ni­hilis­tic bent, Ora­cabessa keeps im­pres­sive time to the old­est known songs of the world, those that cham­pi­on full-heart­ed­ness, and the per­haps mis­lead­ing no­tion of love as an ul­ti­mate re­deemer. These po­ems are filled with good vi­bra­tions, and the best among them are un­for­get­table bal­lads of beau­ti­ful re­silience."

The Best of All­Pos­si­ble Worlds

Karen Lord

Del Rey, 2013

"What's re­mark­able about Lord's oeu­vre is that it's near-un­matched: very few Caribbean writ­ers, res­i­dent in the Caribbean, com­mit them­selves to the pro­duc­tion of spec­u­la­tive fic­tion. Lord tells sto­ries that are not on­ly fas­ci­nat­ing emo­tion­al­ly and an­thro­po­log­i­cal­ly, but she's do­ing it in a sin­gu­lar lit­er­ary field."