Windrush Day honours the rich contributions of the Windrush Generation and their descendants to British society.
In celebration, we've curated a list of seven unmissable books from authors of Caribbean descent. From poignant novels to insightful historical accounts, there is a book here for every reader.
Early one morning, at the close of St Colibri’s carnival, a young female steel-pan player is found dead beneath a cannonball tree. It is a discovery that will transform the lives of everyone on this small island. Four women spark a revolution in this electrifying new novel from the Costa-winning author of The Mermaid of Black Conch
This collection brings together the work of nine inventive and brilliant poets who defined and drove the dub poetry genre. From the Caribbean, Canada and the UK, the poetry in this collection spans forty years, as dub became a powerful cultural and creative force. Read an extract here .
When Layla and Andy first meet, they can't believe they have the same surname. It feels like fate… until they realise their families could be linked in the worst possible way. What seemed like a fairy-tale romance is rapidly derailed as Layla begins to uncover parts of her history and identity that she had never imagined – or, perhaps, had simply learnt to ignore.
Empire Without End offers a new interpretation of the British Empire, its enduring entanglement with the Anglophone Caribbean and the longevity of systemic racism. Taking a longer historical perspective starting in the period of European contact with the Caribbean and ending today, Imaobong Umoren looks at the impact and legacies of racial slavery to explore how later linked histories relating to capitalism, class, labour, war, political economy, poverty, gender and culture are crucial to telling the full story.
Yamaye lives for the weekend, when she can go raving with her friends at The Crypt, an underground club on the outskirts of London. Then everything changes. Yamaye meets Moose, who she falls deeply in love with, and who offers her the chance of freedom and escape.
After their relationship is brutally cut short, Yamaye goes on a dramatic journey of transformation that leads her to Jamaica, where past and present collide with explosive consequences.
In 1945, Rick Braithwaite, a smart, highly educated ex-RAF pilot, looks for a job in British engineering. He is deeply shocked to realise that, as a black man from British Guiana, no one will employ him because of the colour of his skin. In desperation he turns to teaching, taking a job in a tough East End school, and left to govern a class of unruly teenagers. With no experience or guidance, Braithwaite attempts to instil discipline, confound prejudice and ultimately, to teach.
Homecoming draws on over a hundred first-hand interviews, archival recordings and memoirs by the women and men who came to Britain from the West Indies between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. In their own words, we witness the transition from the optimism of the first post-war arrivals to the race riots of the late 1950s. We hear from nurses in Manchester; bus drivers in Bristol; seamstresses in Birmingham; teachers in Croydon; dockers in Cardiff; inter-racial lovers in High Wycombe, and Carnival Queens in Leeds. These are stories of hope and regret, of triumphs and challenges, brimming with humour, anger and wisdom. Together, they reveal a rich tapestry of Caribbean British lives.
