Be honest. How many Barbadian novels and/or novelists can you name off the top of your head? I’d venture to guess that for a lot of Bajans – maybe even most – that number is one; likely either In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming or The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke.
Perhaps like me, the first time you encountered a Barbadian novel and novelist was when you studied English Literature at the Barbados Community College. As a result, your conception of Barbadian Literature as a whole, not just novels, is that it is largely confined to the 50s, 60s and 70s, because those were the only decades the course pulled from. But that’s not true.
Barbados doesn’t have a prolific output of novels, but several Barbadian novels have been published since around the 1950s until the present day. In fact, there are more that were published since the turn of the millennium than I think most Bajans would imagine. And it’s that particular period that I’m looking at in this list.
I’m focusing specifically on fiction novels, so you won’t find non-fiction books like biographies, memories, true crime, and the like. Further, there won’t be any collections of short stories, poems, or anything of the sort.
To keep the list short and sweet, I’m going with one novel from each author, which means that in most cases it will be the first novel they released in or after the year 2000.
Too Beautiful to Die (2003) by Glenville Lovell
Too Beautiful to Die is Lovell’s first novel in the mystery and crime genres. He’d previously written the novels Fire in the Canes and Song of Night, which were published in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Both are categorised as literary fiction. While Lovell’s first two novels were set in the Caribbean – Song of Night took place in Barbados – Too Beautiful to Die is set in Brooklyn, New York.
The novel follows Black ex-cop Blades Overstreet. He resigned from – and is suing – the NYPD after being shot and nearly killed by a white office. During an investigation into the disappearance of an actress’ father, he finds the body of a murdered FBI agent and is framed. Now on the the run from the FBI and his former employer, Overstreet must solve the murder and clear his name.
Two sequels followed Too Beautiful To Die: Love and Death in Brooklyn in 2004 and The Darkest Street in 2016. Like their predecessor, each novel sees Overstreet investigating a murder. In Love in Death in Brooklyn it’s the murder of an African-American politician, whereas in The Darkest Street, it’s that of the father of a wealthy friend.
More (2008) by Austin Clarke
Austin Clarke’s most famous work is, perhaps undoubtedly, The Polished Hoe. For that reason it will not be included in this list. Instead, his following novel, More, is.
Idora Morrison is a Barbadian living in Toronto. For all of the 25 years that she’s lived in the city, she’s struggled to make ends meet. Her husband abandoned her years ago, leaving her to raise their son, BJ, alone. Now, she’s learned that BJ has become involved in gang crime. The news is too much for her to bear. Unable to get out of bed, she spends four days and nights in her basement apartment. She retreats into her memories and re-examines her life as black immigrant in Toronto, revisiting the pain and disappointment that she’s faced.
More won the Toronto Book Award in 2009. Unfortunately, it was Clarke’s last novel, though not his last published work. Austin Clarke died on June 26th, 2016.
Redemption in Indigo (2010) by Karen Lord
A fantastical story inspired by Senegalese folklore, Redemption in Indigo is Karen Lord’s debut novel.
Paama has left her foolish and gluttonous husband, Ansige, after ten years of marriage. Unfortunately for her, Ansige hires a tracker, Kwame, and follows her there. Ansige disgraces himself by murdering livestock and stealing corn, so Paama leaves him for good. Paama attracts the attention of the djombi Patience, who gives her the Chaos Stick. The stick, however, belongs to another djombi, Chance – the titular Indigo Lord. And he wants it back.
Redemption in Indigo has won quite a few awards. Before it was even published it won the Frank Collymore Literary Award, as a manuscript, in 2008. In 2010 it won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award. The following year, in 2011, it won the William L Crawford Award and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. Finally, in 2012, it won the Golden Tentacle Award.
You can read an excerpt from the novel here.
Tracing Jaja (2016) by Anthony Kellman
Like with Glenville Lovell and Austin Clarke, this is not the first published work by Anthony Kellman. He had long been an established author by the time that Tracing Jaja was released, having already published five books of poetry and two novels.
In fact, Tracing Jaja isn’t even the first novel that he published in the 21st century. That would be the 2004 novel Houses of Alphonso, but Tracing Jaja is a bit more interesting.
The name alone should clue you into what inspired the novel and who its protagonist is. Set during the last four months of his life, Tracing Jaja is about the titular King Jubo Jubogha of Opobo (aka King Jaja)’s exile in Barbados and his romance with his Barbadian servant, Becka.
In 2018 the novel won the Casa de la Américas Literary Award for Anglophone Caribbean Literature.
You can download a sample here.
Prickett’s Well: Who the Body is? (2017) by Edison T. Williams
Prickett’s Well: Who the Body is? is Edison T. Williams’ first novel and second published book. His first book was a collection of short stories entitled Facing North: Tales From Bathsheba.
When the body of a woman is found in a well in the middle of a cane field in St. Lucy, the Northern division of the Royal Barbados Police Force embarks on an investigation to find out who she is and solve the crime. Rather than serve your standard crime story in this novel, Williams instead uses the murder mystery at the centre of it as a vehicle to explore Barbados’ socio-political history and landscape.
The Girl With the Hazel Eyes (2019) by Callie Browning
Callie Browning’s first novel, The Girl With the Hazel Eyes tells the story of Lia Davis; a young writer hand-picked by exiled Barbadian writer Susan Taylor to write her biography. Susan was banished from Barbados fifty years prior because of her whistle-blowing novel The Unspeakable Truth. It becomes clear to Lia that Susan is hiding something and she makes it her mission to find out what that is.
The Girl With the Hazel Eyes was a finalist for the Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize in 2019. It was also included in Oprah Magazine’s 16 Books by Caribbean Authors To Add To Your Reading List, as well as Yahoo and In the Know’s list of 10 Must-Read Books By Caribbean Authors To Add To Your Bookshelf and Hearst Latinx’s Caribbean Reading List.
My Fishy Stepmom (aka Josephine Against the Sea) (2019) by Shakirah Bourne
Shakirah Bourne’s writing credits are varied and extensive. Not only is she a novelist, but a writer of short fiction, a screenwriter, and a playwright as well. She’s also a film director. My Fishy Stepmom, however, is her first foray into children’s fiction.
Eleven year old Josephine Cadogan loves two things: her daddy and cricket. By joining her school’s cricket team she will not only get to play her favourite sport, but keep her daddy busy with matches so he has no time to date. Sadly, she gets neither. Because she’s a girl she can’t try out for the team and, worse yet, her daddy has a mysterious new girlfriend, Mariss. Josephine resorts to her usual tricks, but nothing drives Mariss away. There’s something fishy about this Mariss and Josephine is going to get to the bottom of it.
Scholastic changed the title of the novel from My Fish Stepmom to Josephine Against the Sea when they published it in 2021. Blue Banyan Books originally published it in 2019.
My Fishy Stepmom was a finalist for the CODE Burt Award for Caribbean Young Adult Literature in 2018 (while still a manuscript), it was on Rebel Women Lit’s Caribbean Readers’ Awards shortlist, and it was nominated for Book of the Year and Writer of the Year at the 2022 Gine On?! People’s Choice Awards. It is currently a finalist in the Ignyte Awards presented by FIYAH Literary Magazine.
How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (2021) by Cherie Jones
A lot of Barbadians likely heard of this novel when it was included on Good Morning America’s monthly book club in February 2021. At the time, clips of Jones’s appearances on the programme circulated on social media.
How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is set in 1980s Barbados on the fictional Baxter’s Beach. That is where Lala grew up with her grandmother, Wilma, who is overprotective of Lala for reasons she does not divulge to her. Now 18 year old, Lala lives in a shack on the beach with her husband, Adan; a charismatic petty criminal who abuses her.
Mira Whalen, a biracial Barbadian woman who passes for white, is staying at a nearby beach mansion. She is visiting the island with her rich, white, British husband Peter and his children from a previous marriage. When Adan’s attempt to burgle the mansion goes horribly awry, resulting in Peter’s death, it sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences.
In 2021 the novel was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
An excerpt is available here.
