Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

This is a promis­ing year for new re­leas­es in fic­tion, po­et­ry and non-fic­tion from the Caribbean lit­er­ary world and its di­as­po­ra. Two of the four books I'm most look­ing for­ward to read­ing are writ­ten by au­thors who live and work in Trinidad, while the oth­er two are writ­ten by Caribbean-British writ­ers.

A Caribbean sto­ry can flour­ish any­where, to dif­fer­ent depths, and this rich quar­tet of up­com­ing ti­tles proves that, based on the strength of their promise alone.

The Lost Child

by Caryl Phillips (Far­rar, Straus and Giroux, March 2015)

The work of Kit­tit­ian-British nov­el­ist, play­wright and non-fic­tion writer Caryl Phillips delves in­to the ex­pe­ri­ences of African di­as­po­ra peo­ples in the Unit­ed King­dom, the Caribbean and else­where, ren­der­ing their lives in com­plex and imag­i­na­tive re­lief. His newest nov­el, The Lost Child, is a bold and am­bi­tious un­der­tak­ing: a re­sponse to Emi­ly Bront�'s Wuther­ing Heights. Re­con­fig­ur­ing the per­son­ages of Cathy and Heath­cliff, Phillips' fic­tion­al­is­ing is al­so in­ves­tiga­tive, ask­ing ques­tions of blood­lines, ori­gins and the na­ture of fam­i­ly life. Works of art that al­ter the per­spec­tives from which we view an in­her­it­ed land­scape are cru­cial. When pow­er­ful­ly done, they res­onate with the res­olute strength of Jean Rhys' Wide Sar­gas­so Sea. In Phillips' im­mense sto­ry­telling hands, the thwart­ed tale of Cathy and Heath­cliff is primed to ex­ist dis­crete­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly out­side of the realm of its source ma­te­r­i­al.

The Whale House and Oth­er Sto­ries

by Sharon Mil­lar (Peepal Tree Press, April 2015)

De­spite co-win­ning the 2013 Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize for The Whale House, Sharon Mil­lar con­tin­ues to be one of Trinidad's bet­ter-kept lit­er­ary se­crets. Thank­ful­ly, the pub­li­ca­tion of her first book, a short sto­ry col­lec­tion which con­tains that Com­mon­wealth prizewin­ner, should serve to put Mil­lar more solid­ly on the lo­cal and re­gion­al map–not just on its pe­riph­ery, but in the cen­tre of its or­bit. Mil­lar's prose is sharp and care­ful­ly wrought, a tes­ta­ment to her time spent study­ing cre­ative writ­ing for­mal­ly in the MFA pro­gramme at Les­ley Uni­ver­si­ty. The Whale House is a tale of hu­man grief set against na­ture's majesty; if it is any in­di­ca­tion of the col­lec­tion's strength, then Mil­lar's book launch at the 2015 NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest will be one of the itin­er­ary's high­lights.

The Strange Years of My Life

by Nicholas Laugh­lin (Peepal Tree Press, April 2015)

Laugh­lin, pro­gramme di­rec­tor of the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, ed­i­tor of Caribbean Beat mag­a­zine and the Caribbean Re­view of Books, and co-di­rec­tor of the Wood­brook arts space Al­ice Yard, wears a vi­tal abun­dance of lit­er­ary hats. It might sur­prise even bet­ter-read, book-club at­tend­ing Tri­nis to learn that Laugh­lin's own work as a po­et is il­lu­mi­nat­ing, and ar­guably as vi­tal as his cease­less con­tri­bu­tions to the lo­cal and re­gion­al arts at­mos­phere. The Strange Years of My Life is an emo­tion­al and sym­bol­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion of his po­ems, spread across sev­er­al years of writ­ing and trav­el­ling. Writ­ing for The Op­er­at­ing Sys­tem, UK-based Trinida­di­an po­et Vah­ni Capildeo al­so de­scribes Laugh­lin's writ­ing as vi­tal, in the ways that it "brings Caribbean lyric con­scious­ness right up to date, with­out be­ing overt­ly po­lit­i­cal." El­e­ments of the per­son­al, framed as a po­lit­i­cal, pri­vate car­ni­val of the self are at work, echo­ing through­out these po­ems. Their print pub­li­ca­tion is a long-hoped-for de­light.

Long Time No See

by Han­nah Lowe (Periscope Books, May 2015)

In her first full-length po­et­ry col­lec­tion, Han­nah Lowe fo­cused on the ex­tra­or­di­nary and mis­ad­ven­ture-marked life of her fa­ther, a half-Chi­nese, half-black Ja­maican im­mi­grant known amongst his gam­bling cronies as "Chick." The po­ems in Chick re­vealed the gaps in un­der­stand­ing be­tween fa­ther and daugh­ter, the va­can­cies of af­fec­tion marked by a dan­ger­ous, un­cer­tain pro­fes­sion and an un­steady home life. Long Time No See, Lowe's forth­com­ing book, turns the read­er's at­ten­tion to­wards the same sto­ry, told this time not in verse but as a mem­oir. It's es­pe­cial­ly in­ter­est­ing to see if this nar­ra­tive will cut clos­er to the bone, in its re­for­mat­ted struc­ture. Lowe's mem­oir rais­es ques­tions about mul­ti­ple ways of telling a dif­fi­cult and es­sen­tial truth, and hints at be­ing as emo­tive­ly riv­et­ing as its po­et­ic pre­de­ces­sor.

Oth­er books:

Oth­er Caribbean ti­tles to look out for:

Leav­ing by Plane Swim­ming Back Un­der­wa­ter by Lawrence Scott (Pa­pil­lote Press, March 2015)

Burn by An­dre Ba­goo (Shears­man Books, April 2015)

The Star Side of Bird Hill by Nao­mi Jack­son (Pen­guin Press, June 2015)