Ira Math­ur

With some four mil­lion books pub­lished an­nu­al­ly (a mil­lion rough­ly di­vid­ed up be­tween the UK and the US, Source: Word­sRat­ed) it’s safe to say a book can drown with­out mar­ket­ing and re­views. Es­pe­cial­ly if it’s a Caribbean book.

Apart from a hand­ful of writ­ers picked by big-bud­get con­glom­er­ate pub­lish­ers, writ­ers, and po­ets for whom words are a vo­ca­tion, have toiled, dug deep, de­vot­ing their en­tire lives to writ­ing, can find them­selves adrift on this ocean of books af­ter be­ing pub­lished. By their na­ture writ­ers find it dif­fi­cult to emerge from the qui­et in­te­ri­or­i­ty re­quired to write to nav­i­gate the flashy loud chest thump­ing world of mar­ket­ing.

En­ter an­gels of mer­cy in the form of book clubs. The Caribbean Book Club is a raft for writ­ers, es­pe­cial­ly Caribbean writ­ers who, de­spite com­bined her­culean prize-win­ning tal­ent don’t have the re­sources to get their books in­to the hands of read­ers in their own home­towns far less the re­gion or glob­al­ly.

Writ­ing is an act of the soul and flag­ging a book of your own (even though we do it) can shrink all the cre­ativ­i­ty a writer needs to work. Caribbean work is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant for a re­gion that has emerged from the trau­ma of colo­nial­ism and is now re­claim­ing its iden­ti­ty, book by book.

Rol-J Williams, a med­ical stu­dent at the UWI, a grad­u­ate of Bio­chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of St An­drews, Scot­land, and an award-win­ning de­bater (In 2022, Williams was named the most out­stand­ing de­bater at the Bo­cas Youth Fes­ti­val ‘Big Ideas De­bate’ is among five mod­er­a­tors of The Caribbean Book Club.

Williams ex­em­pli­fies a Caribbean Re­nais­sance man, as deeply in­ter­est­ed in lit­er­a­ture as he is in sci­ence, as firm­ly root­ed in a West In­di­an fed­er­a­tion of writ­ers as he is in his na­tive St Kitts and Nevis. He and four oth­er like-mind­ed mod­er­a­tors of The Caribbean Book Club read tire­less­ly and help keep West In­di­an lit­er­a­ture afloat.

Williams said the Caribbean Book Club group (with over a thou­sand mem­bers) was formed on Face­book dur­ing the pan­dem­ic (in May 2020) by a group of read­ers from Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, St Kitt and Nevis, and T&T who “met in the com­ments sec­tion’ in re­sponse to a post on a Face­book page.” The on­ly cri­te­ria the Caribbean Book Club us­es in choos­ing books is that the au­thor was born in, lives in, or is of Caribbean de­scent.

The for­mat is en­tire­ly vir­tu­al, and most mem­bers have nev­er met one an­oth­er; Yet, Williams said, ‘it’s amaz­ing’ how com­plete strangers met on the in­ter­net over their love of Caribbean books and are now among his “great­est friends.”

In three years since its for­ma­tion, The Caribbean Book Club has held 36 Book of the Month Ses­sions, with the first be­ing Miguel Street by V S Naipaul and the thir­ty-sixth be­ing The Farm­ing of Bones by Ed­widge Dan­ti­cat.

While the Caribbean Book Clubs’ pri­ma­ry fo­cus is to dis­cuss “one ma­jor piece of lit­er­a­ture month­ly,” the Club, Williams said, has host­ed dis­cus­sions with award-win­ning au­thors, in­clud­ing In­grid Per­saud, Tiphanie Yanique, Shar­ma Tay­lor, Kei Miller, Bar­bara Jenk­ins, Kevin Jared Ho­sein, Ayan­na Lloyd Ban­wo, Marie Ele­na John, God­frey Smith, Cherie Jones, and An­dre Ba­goo.”

The Caribbean Book Club has a long list of books to dis­cuss across the re­gion–from An­tigua, The Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Cay­man Is­lands, Chile, Colom­bia, Brazil, Guade­loupe, Do­mini­ca, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Mar­tinique, Pana­ma, St Lu­cia, Ja­maica, to St Vin­cent  Grenadines and Suri­name.

The fol­low­ing is the Caribbean Book Club’s ever-ex­pand­ing (most­ly fic­tion) list up for dis­cus­sion from books writ­ten by T&T writ­ers:

Gold­en Child by Claire Adam

When We Were Birds by Ayan­na Lloyd-Ban­wo

The Bread the Dev­il Knead by Lisa Allen Agos­ti­ni

Green Days by the Riv­er by Michael An­tho­ny

Saga Boy by An­to­nio Michael Down­ing

Crick, crack, mon­key by Mer­le Hodge

Salt by Earl Lovelace

The Wine of As­ton­ish­ment by Earl Lovelace

The Drag­on Cant Dance by Earl Lovelace

Love Af­ter Love by In­grid Per­saud

The Mer­maid of Black Conch by Monique Rof­fey

Miguel Street by V S Naipaul

One Year of Ug­ly by Car­o­line McKen­zie

A Brighter Sun by Sam Selvon

The Lone­ly Lon­don­ers by Samuel Selvon

Se­crets We Kept: Three Women of Trinidad by Krys­tal A. Sital

Kate Aba­ni­ah & the Fa­ther of the For­est by Wayne Ger­ard Trot­man

For the life of Laeti­tia by  Mer­le Hodge

Hun­gry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Ho­sein

One Day, One Day, Con­go­tay by Mer­le Hodge

Love The Dark Days by Ira Math­ur

The Stranger Who Was My­self by Bar­bara Jenk­ins

The Dream­ing by An­dre Ba­goo

Now Lila Knows by Eliz­a­beth Nunez

Is­land Queen by Vanes­sa Ri­ley

The Caribbean Book Club’s per­ma­nent for­mat in­cludes ‘Po­et­ry Sun­day’ on the first Sun­day of each month, ‘Bring Your Own Book (BY­OB)’ on the sec­ond Sun­day, and the ‘Book of the Month’ dis­cus­sion on the third Sun­day. The Club meets via Zoom and can be found on In­sta­gram and Face­book. Lovers of Caribbean books glob­al­ly are wel­come to join.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023.