CINDY Allman is a Trinidad-based Jamaican blogger who is advocating for the reading of Caribbean books, particularly in June, which, according to her website, ‘Book of Cinz,’ is the month that is recognised as Caribbean Heritage Month. Allman is the originator of #ReadCaribbean Month, and it is her initiative got me thinking about all of the amazing Caribbean books that have been written through the ages.

While Allman herself, the Bocas Lit Fest, and a range of Caribbean authors are doing a lot to bring attention to Caribbean books this month, I thought that it would be nice to compile a list of some great Caribbean reads for readers in Guyana. Therefore, below, in random order, are some of my favourite books of prose fiction, that have been written by authors with Caribbean heritage. I hope that every avid reader in Guyana takes a chance on one of the options below as part of this year’s Read Caribbean Month. The list will be particularly helpful to people new to Caribbean literature as most of the works below are considered classics.

1) The Hummingbird Tree – Ian McDonald
This book was one of those that many people read in high school, and, for a lot of us, it was a defining text that helped to prove and solidify the idea, particularly in those formative years, that Caribbean literature could be as timeless and as topical as works from other parts of the world. It is a simple, bittersweet story about love, loss, race, and growing up, set in Trinidad, and focusing on the complex friendship between a white boy named Alan and two poor East Indian siblings, Kaiser and Jaillin.

2) The Farming of Bones – Edwidge Danticat
Readers in Guyana are already familiar with prejudice as one of our nation’s main historical themes. This novel, by the Haitian author, highlights aspects of the ‘Parsley Massacre’ where many Haitians were murdered because of prejudicial elements within The Dominican Republic. The author uses a love story as the major literary element to emphasize the terrors and inevitable outcomes of discrimination and trauma, and there are numerous lessons in this novel that can be beneficial to the people in Guyana.

3) My Bones and My Flute – Edgar Mittelholzer
Mittelholzer’s novel is a Guyanese favourite and it tells of a family who is trapped and terrorised by malevolent spirits within the sinister, and yet hauntingly beautiful, interior regions of the country. The novel is an absolutely spooky read, and it is the ideal text for you if you love works set in the jungles in Guyana, and if you like the kind of horror where there are cursed manuscripts, battles between good and evil, and characters using their wits and their environment to figure out how to survive.

4) A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
It is extremely easy to appreciate the uproarious nature of this Nobel Prize laureate’s most famous novel. Everyone who reads this book is sure to find joy and comedy in the experiences of our hero, Mohun Biswas, particularly in the sequences that come after he has moved in with his wife’s relatives in the famous ‘Hanuman House.’ But the novel is also about perseverance and modernity, and as much as we laugh at Biswas’ experiences, we also support him wholeheartedly when he decides to build his own house and, thus, find his own way in life.

5) I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem – Maryse Condé
Did you know that the principal figure in the launch of the Salem Witch Trials was a Caribbean woman? This novel by the Guadeloupean writer takes this premise and runs with it, giving us a beautiful historical and feminist reimagining of Tituba’s story, presenting her as heroine instead of mere victim, and focusing on her life and her role as the first woman accused of being a witch in the beginning of the Salem Trials. There is also an excellent piece of intertextuality when the author juxtaposes Tituba’s story with Hester Prynne’s, the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic, The Scarlet Letter, as the character appears as a cellmate to Tituba.

6) Palace of the Peacock – Wilson Harris
Readers who take on Harris’ work need a lot of patience, but it pays off in the end because of the experiences and newfound sense of viewing the world that one gains after finishing one of his books. In this novel, the author uses his trademark dense, poetic, dreamlike style to tell the story of a group of men, representing almost the entire spectrum of Guyana’s ethnic make-up, as they search for a mysterious woman named Mariella in the Guyanese jungle. Honestly, it is quite a bizarre book – but it is bizarre in the very best ways. It cannot be explained, only experienced.

7) The Book of Night Women – Marlon James
I actually like this book by the Jamaican author more than his A Brief History of Seven Killings, which won the Booker Prize. It is set on a slave plantation and tells the life story of an enslaved woman named Lilith. The best thing about this novel, apart from the wide array of astounding, excellently-developed, female characters, is the way the author writes in the unique vernacular of Jamaican Creole, which makes the language of the novel one that is rich and ripe with the intonations of the Caribbean.

8) Golden Child – Claire Adam
This novel is about twin boys who are very different from each other. It taps into issues, such as family, education, class, crime, and relationships, all of which come to the fore when one of the boys, Paul, is kidnapped. This sends the family down a path where tough decisions are made, and tougher epiphanies about the two boys, and their positions within the family, are realised. It is a sad novel, but there are moments of purity and lightness within it as well.

9) Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
Rhys was born in Dominica, and she led quite an interesting life. Her most important contribution to the canon of Caribbean literature lies in her writing of this particular novel, which gives meaning and complexity to Bertha, the famous minor character who first appears in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Rhys develops the character by giving her a life and a personality beyond just being ‘the madwoman in the attic,’ while also using the character to advance important feminist themes in the novel.

10) The Ventriloquist’s Tale – Pauline Melville
Honestly, I think Pauline Melville might be my most favourite Guyanese writer of all time. This particular novel of hers highlights all of the things that I find wondrous about her writing. Her vivid descriptions, her appreciation of the unconventional elements in Guyanese life, and her keen awareness of both colonialism and folklore in the Guyanese experience can all be found in this novel which focuses on indigenous characters, including the brother/sister pair of Danny and Beatrice with their forbidden love for each other, and their confrontations with the past and present, as well as change and stagnation.

Image saved as: A House for Mr Biswas
Caption: ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’ by V.S. Naipaul, 2001 (first published 1961), Vintage – Image Source: Goodreads