My favorite Caribbean books of 2020

This was supposed to be a podcast episode. The gods of technology weren’t on my side, so while I’m getting my equipment fixed, I still want to present you my 5 favorite Caribbean books of 2020.

In 2020, I read 91 books, including novels, short stories, collections of short stories and academic writings. I read 84 fiction books. Out of those 84 books, I read only one white author but he's a trans man so he isn’t the archetypal straight cis white man. I read 4 or 5 by Black men authors. I read one story by an Indo-American woman author. All the other novels were written by Black women, from the Caribbean or not. For my top 10 favorite romances you can check out my blog for the French version and my Instagram for the English version. Today, I present to you my five favorite Caribbean books out of the 34 I read in 2020. I listed them in chronological order of reading and not in order of preference.

Honorable mention - “Tea by The Sea” by Donna Hemans (Jamaica)

Plum is 17 years old and has just given birth when Lenworth, the baby's father, disappears with their daughter. She spends the rest of her life searching for them while trying to build herself as an adult. 

I read it before it came out and had the pleasure of interviewing the author. The interviewis available in French and English . Reviews and interviews that I have read or listened to mostly analyze the theme of having agency and how to claim it back when it’s taken away from you. I don't put the book in my fav 5 because of the rather abrupt ending but I still want to talk about it because it made me think about a theme close to my heart: the representation of Caribbean parenthood. Usually stories are told from the point of view of the child or the mother but rarely from the father's point of view. “Tea by The Sea” crosses the three points of view and gives them the same importance. I think this is important to highlight.

January - Where dogs bark by the tail by Estelle Sarah Bulle (Guadeloupe)

Estelle Sarah Bulle was one of the few new authors who made an impact on the literature season in 2018/2019. And in fact, I had bought the book in 2019, I started it several times and then I left it aside. Why? The realism of family, social, racial dynamics in Guadeloupe were too hard to handle. “Where dogs bark by the tail” is a story told from 4 different points of view to unravel the history of the Ezéquiel family over the 20th century. Beyond the story itself, I liked the clear, precise and poetic writing style. From a narrative perspective, it isn’t easy to find the balance between several voices without creating confusion. For example, I read “The Lone” Sun by Daniel Maximin and “Texaco” by Patrick Chamoiseau. I know that these are masterpieces of French Caribbean literature, but I often felt confused about what was going on while reading. I plan to read them again in 2021 anyway so we’ll see how it goes. Anyway, “Where dogs bark by the tail” is in my favorite reads of 2020 because it made me question how to tell the story of Guadeloupe and what point of view to use. Check out my post about it.I’d like to point out that the book is in French, but with the success that it had in France, I’m sure it will be translated into English soon...

June - Brand New by Rilzy Adams

This novella is also in my 10 favorite romances of 2020. Rilzy Adams is an author from Antigua and Barbuda. She writes romance but also erotic fiction. She created the Love on the rock universe in which “Brand New” is set. It's a novella dedicated to Regina and Quentin. Regina is the cool and sexy teacher. Quentin is the cool and sexy and dreadlock-wearing teacher. They can't stand each other. As you can guess, this is the enemies-to-lovers trope. What I liked was the Caribbean party atmosphere. There was a very 90s / early 2000s vibe. Hopefully, we’ll get to read their full story one day. 

June - The Girl with the Hazel Eyes by Callie Browning

After writing award-winning short stories, Barbadian author Callie Browning delivers the real and the authentic in her first novel which Caribbean Bookstagram buzzed about all throughout 2020. And the hype was so well deserved. “The Girl With the Hazel Eyes” tells the story of Susan during her childhood and adolescence in Barbados during the independence fighting era in the 50s and 60s. I liked the book so much that I have yet to read it again, but I still think about it on a regular basis.  Again, it's the kind of literature that makes me think about my own writing, about how to tell our own stories. The plot is so well planned out that you're convinced that the characters are real, that the events, apart from the historical events, really happened. Bonus point, there’s a positive portrayal of a black teenager. Kenneth is my baby boy. He’s the man that every woman should have in their life either as a friend or as a lover. You can find out more about it in Callie’s interview available in English and French. Her second novel is scheduled to be released in a few weeks. “The Vanishing Girls” is about a serial killer in Barbados in the 80s. I can't wait.

August - The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark

May Science fiction fans, steam punk fans, please stand up. That one is for you. And even if it isn’t your style, it will be for you too. To put it simply, steam punk is science fiction literature set in the 19th industrial era. Think about Jules Verne. As an historian from Trinidad and Tobago, P. Djèlí Clark really paid attention to the details to create this alternative universe in which New-Orleans is a neutral city in the American Civil War still going on in 1884. 13-year-old orphan Creeper wants to leave New Orleans in an airship and explore the world. When she discovers a secret related to the disappearance of a Haitian scientist, she sees an opportunity to leave her city by helping Ann-Marie, the captain of the The Midnight Robber airship. P. Djèlí Clark’s ability to invent an alternative History left me in awe. In terms of story details, “The Black God's Drums” has everything I ask for. A brave and intelligent young heroine, AfroCaribbean mythology, action scenes, a celebrated Haiti, a respected Caribbean culture… to the point he even uses Creole on several occasions. To people who aren’t from our culture, this is a negative aspect. To me, it’s a positive one. When it’s about a culture that isn’t yours, you have to learn to decenter your discourse, you need to stop making it all about you and you need to stay focused on what you can relate to as a human being. In any case, P. Djèlí Clark is for me the Caribbean author to follow. Caribbean Bookstagram kept buzzing with his latest novel "Ring Shout" throughout fall and winter. A TV series adaptation has already been confirmed... So stay tuned.

November - Force Ripe by Cindy Mackenzie

This novel broke my heart. I think it's my first time in my 30 or so years since I learned how to read. I said so in my flash review on my Instagram. I'm not going to read it again because it's too hard. We follow Lee's destiny between the ages of 6/7 and 17/18 in Grenada in the 1970s and 1980s. Through her journey, which is made up of long suffering and a few moments of happiness, we discover the racial, social, economic and political dynamics of Caribbean societies in the mid-twentieth century. The strength of this novel is the writing style. If you read negative critics saying that the style is repetitive, that the vocabulary is poor, then the person has missed the entire point of this book. And I don't want to sugarcoat things. It's Cindy McKenzie's first novel, but she wrote a masterpiece. We hear the voice of a little girl who is a victim of daily abuse in all its forms, coming from all sides. No one protects her, no one listens to her. A little girl cannot have the vocabulary of an adult to describe colourism, racism or rape. It is precisely because Cindy Mackenzie uses this child's point of view that reading remains bearable. Otherwise, it's unbearable in the sense that 90% of what happens to Lee is "ordinary". It's horrible even to say it. Lee would be a woman in her fifties in 2020. I think of all those Caribbean women of that age, the mothers of my generation whose childhood and teenage experiences are still ignored, passed over in silence while their austere personalities are often decried... Or maybe it's because I haven't read the novels about them yet. The exploration continues in 2021.

What about you ? Which Caribbean books did you enjoy in 2020 ?