When people speak about Jamaica they discuss their beautiful beaches, electric music, delectable food and their unique culture, but rarely do people mention their literary prowess.
August 6 is Jamaica’s Independence day, and what better way to celebrate than to read a book by a Jamaican author.
Putting together this post was NOT easy, let me start there. I love Jamaican writers; and just like Jamaican culture, Jamaican writers have spread to many corners of the world.
Then I encountered the question of what is a Jamaican. But I didn’t attempt to answer this, that’s another question for another day because mi caan badda right now.
Ok, now that we got that out of the way, I want to explain a little of my rationale behind the list.
I began this list last year when a reader asked me for recommendations by Jamaican writers. I wanted to post this list for Jamaica’s Independence, but when the day came I realized I was missing so much and the list didn’t feel complete. So, I continued to work on it, adding and subtracting books throughout the year and now here we are again.
I realized a few things while writing this list… Firstly I’ve read A LOT of Jamaican lit, more than I thought, and I have a lot on my shelves, I’m sure my uncle, who I often co-read with, would be proud. He has introduced me to many of these books and authors and without him I don’t think I would have such a robust list.
But what I love about literature and in this context Jamaican literature is that it opens dialogue. My uncle is a 70-year-old Jamaican man who grew up in Jamaica, lived in Canada raised a family then returned to Jamaica to write and be a part of Jamaican politics. Discussing books with him is an experience. His views and opinions delve deeply into layers that I never thought of. I thank him for expanding my understanding of Jamaica lit.
Jamaican writer Marlon James said ‘try to find one Jamaican voice and you will get lost in many since no one sound speaks for all of us.”
And this is so true. Jamaica boasts ‘out of many, one people’, and nowhere is that more evident than through its literature.
My hope is that you can look at this list and find something that speaks to you, but a list is just a list. Continue to read and seek other Jamaican lit.
Ok, I’m done blabbing…
To celebrate Jamaica’s independence, here are 69 Must-Read Books By Jamaican Authors That Capture the Essence of Jamaica.
1 A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James – This is a tale inspired by the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley that spans decades and continents to explore the experiences of journalists, drug dealers, killers, and ghosts against a backdrop of social and political turmoil.
2. Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn – The backdrop of a lavish resort in Montego Bay serves as a sharp contrast to the hardscrabble life of one of the resort’s employees, Margot, who is willing to do whatever she must to ensure her younger sister, Thandi, can become a doctor and not follow in Margot’s own footsteps. Margot and Thandi struggle to strike a balance between their identities and their dreams, their sense of home and the desires of their hearts.
3. Augustown by Kei Miller – Vividly bringing to life Jamaica in the 1980s, Augustown is a masterpiece of poetic prose that follows one family’s struggle to rise above the brutal vicissitudes of history, race, class, collective memory, violence, and myth.
4. How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs – A collection of stories set in Jamaica, New York City, and a Midwestern university, where multicultural main characters and their families navigate evolving senses of race, racism, family, and tradition.
5. These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card – It is a multi-generational story of one Jamaican family. The story starts with Abel Paisley, a father and husband mourned by his family for thirty years but is only now dying. While overseas, Abel makes the fateful decision to take advantage of the workplace accident that kills a friend, and fake his own death. Years later, home health aide and Abel’s firstborn daughter Irene Paisley arrives to care for a dying man named Stanford Solomon, not knowing he is the father she’s mourned her whole life.
6. How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair – This captivating memoir follows as Sinclair explores her childhood and adulthood living in a strict Rastafarian household in Jamaica. Growing up as a woman in her rasta community there she and her sisters were subjected to numerous rules to maintain and keep their purity. We see how her upbringing impacted every part of her life and how she found herself and broke free through writing.
7. Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson – In a near-dystopic version of Toronto with a strong Afro-Caribbean mythos makes for an original, violent and yet very human urban fantasy.
8. Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson – Byron and Benny haven’t seen each other in years. Now these estranged siblings must set aside their differences to deal with their mother’s hidden past. Theirs is a journey of discovery that takes them from the Caribbean to London to California and ends with her legendary black cake. This is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history.
9. Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay – The pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition. Published for the first time.
10. If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery – Fleeing to Miami after political violence consumes their native Kingston, a younger son of a Jamaican family, Trelawny, struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism, and flat-out bad luck, clawing himself out of homelessness with a series of odd, often hilarious jobs.
11. Banana Bottom by Claude McKay – This novel, written in 1933, tells the story of Bita, who has returned to her remote rural village after several years being raised by a white missionary couple in Jamaica, and having been educated in an English boarding school. It is a vivid portrait of how colour, race, and class operated in colonial Jamaica, in a context of hyper-Christianity and irrepressible sexuality, told in a wry tone and with a lot of heavy dialect. Gives a great glimpse into how life was a century ago, as well as an understanding of some of the early tensions surrounding Indian and Chinese immigration.
12. Jamaica Labrish by Louise Bennett – This is a poetry compilation written by Jamaican treasure Louise Bennett and published in 1966. The poems are written mainly in Jamaican patois.
13. Daylight Come by Diana McCaulay
14. A Million Aunties by Alecia McKenzie – Jamaica, his mother’s homeland, represents a chance to find peace and solitude when an American-born artist experiences a tragic loss. Instead, he gets a complicated extended family (related or otherwise) who need him as much as he soon learns he needs them. Told from different perspectives, McKenzie explores the value of love, unlikely friendships and having a support network through a compelling mix of characters and the contrasting settings of rural Jamaica and the buzzing metropolises of Paris and New York
15. The Merchant of Feathers by Tanya Shirley
16. A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes – Tells the story of Moshe Fisher, a man who was “born without skin,” so that no one is able to tell what race he belongs to; and Arrienne Christie, his quixotic soul mate who makes it her duty in life to protect Moshe from the social and emotional consequences of his strange appearance.
17. Love Possessed by Lorna Goodison
18. Cannibal by Safiya Sinclair –
19. Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta – This book is full of flavour and sweetness. In this collection of short stories, we follow the journey of a young girl becoming a woman. Kara seeks to carve out her space in a world that is giving her conflicting messages about who she is and who she should be. From first kisses and first drinks to failed friendships and betrayal, Kara as she goes from being a young girl to a young adult growing up in the Toronto neighbourhood of Eglinton West, better known as ‘Little Jamaica.’
20. The House of Plain Truth by Donna Hermans
21. The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon – This is a YA novel but that doesn’t take away from its beauty. Natasha is a teenager living in NYC who has 24 hours to leave the country with her family and go back to Jamaica. But it only takes 24 hours for her and Daniel to fall in love.
24. The Confounding Island: Jamaica and the Postcolonial Predicament by Orlando Patterson
25. Don’t Get Mad…Get Even – Short Stories Vol. 1 by J.L. Campbell
26. Home to Harlem by Claude McKay
27. Song for Mumu by Lindsay Barrett
29. True History of Paradise by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
30. Waiting in Vain by Colin Channer
31. Summer Lightning and Other Stories by Olive Senior
32. Heartease by Lorna Goodison
33. The Pagoda by Patricia Powell
34. The Marvelous Equations of the Dread by Marcia Douglas –
35. Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood by Rachel Manley
36. The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir by Staceyann Chin – https://amzn.to/3WRIykX
37. Whispering Death by Michael Holding – https://amzn.to/3Yz5AON
38. Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home by Erna Brodber – https://amzn.to/4d98lL6
39. The Painted Canoe by Anthony Winkler – https://amzn.to/4fBFTmC
40. Stone Haven by Evan Jones – https://amzn.to/3WTS4Em
41. Dew Angels by Melanie Schwapp – https://amzn.to/3WTO2f9
42. The Mountain of Inheritance by Carol Dunn
43. Turn Back Blow by Roger Williams – https://amzn.to/3WBZkTH
44. Wake Rasta and Other Stories by Garfield Ellis –Short stories by Garfield Ellis, a Jamaican writer whose work has received several distinguished awards and appeared in numerous international publications.
45. Voices Under The Window by John Hearne – https://amzn.to/3YznCAp
46. ‘What A Mothers Love Don’t Teach You by Sharma Taylor – https://amzn.to/4dBcveJ
47. Me Dying Trial by Patricia Powell –
48. We Must Learn to Sit Down Together and Talk About a Little Culture: Decolonising Essays by Sylvia Whyter – https://amzn.to/3LSF2R9
49. The Islands by Dionne Irving – Set in locations and times ranging from 1950s London to 1960s Panama to modern-day New Jersey, The Islands follows the lives of Jamaican women—immigrants or the descendants of immigrants—who have relocated all over the world to escape the ghosts of colonialism on what they call the Island.
50. Jade Is a Twisted Green by Tanya Turton – Tanya Turton’s debut novel Jade is a Twisted Green is an emotional coming-of-age story that deals with grief, self-discovery, and queer identity as experienced by Jade Brown, a first-generation Jamaican woman living in Toronto.
51. Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole – https://amzn.to/4fxaTEu
52. The Confessions of Frannie Langton : A Novel by Sara Collins – https://amzn.to/4cffUP5
53. Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller –
54. Songs of Irie by Asha Bromfield – It’s 1976 and Jamaica is in the middle of a political war that has the island split in two. Irie and Jilly come from very different backgrounds: Irie is from the heart of Kingston, where poverty and fighting in the streets are common. Jilly is from the hills, where the wealthy islanders live. Their families are on different sides of a political war, a war that is claiming lives close to them. As tensions begin to build across the island they see how they live in two very different Jamaicas.
55. My Ackee Tree by Suzanne Barr – In this book, Barr opens up about her life, failures and helps us to understand those decisions and how they made her who she is today. She takes the reader back to her childhood and gives a glimpse of her Jamaican heritage which is the foundation of her life and cooking.
56. Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood – An exquisite Ethiopian-inspired fantasy reimagining of Jane Eyre, set in a cursed house with a will entirely of its own.
57. No Bootstraps When You’re Barefoot by Wes Hall – If you want a rags-to-riches story put this book on your list. Wes Hall begins his story with the line “I started with nothing” and frankly he started with less than nothing. At 16 years old his father sent for him to come to Canada. He speaks about his journey and the obstacles he faced inside and outside of the boardroom.
58. So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole – So Let Them Burn is a YA fantasy to root for!’ Namina Forna, author of The Gilded Ones trilogy Whip-smart and immersive, this Jamaican-inspired fantasy follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland.
59. Popisho by Leone Ross – An epic, magical tale of love, community, corruption and colonialism set on an Archipelago called Popisho, inspired by the author’s homeland of Jamaica. In this bawdy, mischievous story, each resident of Popisho is gifted a (sometimes hilarious) magical ability. As the towns peoples worlds collide we see how they gifts come into play.
60. River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta – Alicia, our protagonist, in River Mumma is in a weird space in her life. That’s until she’s invited to a party one night and her world is turned upside down by a mystical deity, River Mumma, who is said to protect bodies of water. River Mumma sets Alicia on a quest to find her stolen comb that was taken by a tourist in Jamaica and she wants it back or else she will dry up all the bodies of water.
61. Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke – Broughtupsy is an enthralling debut novel about a young Jamaican woman grappling with grief as she discovers her family, her home, is always just out of reach. Tired of not having a place to land, twenty-year-old Akúa flies from Canada to her native Jamaica to reconnect with her estranged sister and rediscover her homeland.
62. From Harvey River by Lorna Goodison – The book traces the fall of one family from a life of abundance in rural Hanover, Jamaica to a “hard-life” in Kingston, Jamaica in the mid-1900s. The book lends insight into the complex racial history of many families in Jamaica and illustrates chilling memories of pre-emancipation Jamaica. Also very interesting, by the time the family moves to Kingston Goodison is able to catalog Independence and pre-Independence as well as the intellectual/political revolution which led to full adult sufferage and the emergence of a Black empowerment movement (Marcus Garvey) and Rastafari.
63. Fire Rush by Jaqueline Crooks – https://amzn.to/3YCj7oK
64. Better Must Come by Desmond Hall – https://amzn.to/4fCJLE0
65. Reaper of Souls: A Novel of the 1957 Kendal Crash by Beverly East – https://amzn.to/3SG4HA7
66. The Pain Tree by Olive Senior – https://amzn.to/3YCklQS
67. When Life Gives You Mangos by Kereen Getten – https://amzn.to/3WDgQH9
68. Rasta and Resistance by Horace Campbell – https://amzn.to/3WQxGDQ
69. Born Fi’ Dead: A Journey Through the Yardie Underworld by Laurie Gunst – https://amzn.to/4dstaBD
70. Sweetness in the Skin by Ishi Robinson
Which ones are you adding to your list? Did I miss any books? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for your recommendations.
I would also add every book by the wonderful writer Andrea Levy, especially
Small island, The Long Song, and Fruit of the Lemon.
‘A New Day’ by VS Reid, charts Jamaica’s coming to independence over three generations. Brilliant book.
Thanks for putting that on my radar. I’ll have to add that to the updated list this year.
Laurie Gunst (Born Fi Dead) is not Jamaican.
Oh really, I’ll look into that when i update. Thanks for your feedback.