A restless New York artist searching for purpose returns to Barbados and stumbles into the role of activist in this scathingly funny and brilliantly observed satire about privilege, family discord, and performative do-gooding.

Dark, lanky, and bald, New Yorkraised photographer Sabre Cumberbatch cant tell if shes highly talented or just highly Instagrammable. Up to here with art critics and their gaseous praise, Sabre returns to Barbados, her childhood island home, to water her roots. She needs to quell self-doubt by doing somethinganythingprofoundly important.

Welcoming her with bejeweled open arms is her aunt Aggie, a fearsome high-society attorney eager to show off her famous American niece. When Sabre witnesses Aggie unleash her wrath on the household staff over a minor mistake, Sabre finds her cause. During an interview for a puff piece about art, Sabre goes off-script and takes a righteous stand against the tyranny of the ruling classstarting with Aggie.

Overnight, Sabre throws her family and an entire island into chaos. How many ways can the best intentions go wrong? Theyre racking up. But tingling with purpose, Sabre is counting on the ways they just might go right.

'a book of great candour and compassion written by a storyteller in whose skillful hands the tragic experiences of a Trinidadian family become lessons in love, life and grace' - Cherie Jones, author of How the One-Arm Sister Sweeps Her House

An intricately woven tapestry of stories where survival, resilience and self-discovery are passed down through generations of an Indo-Trinidadian family.

Celeste Mohammed's second novel-in-stories, Ever Since We Small, is a family saga which covers a sweeping landscape from the days of the British Raj in India, to multicultural modern Trinidad. Written in a blend of Standard English and several flavours of Trinidad kriol, the book follows the bloodline of a young woman, Jayanti, after her decision to become a girmitiya, an indentured labourer in the Caribbean.

Jayanti's grandson, Lall Gopaul, seeks to escape the rural village where he was born, but becomes seduced and corrupted by urban life. His son, Shiva, is forced to take a child-bride, Salma, but never recovers from the guilt. Heartache follows for their three children - Anand, Nadya and Abby - who must each find a way to accept and yet move past their parents' failed example.

Along the journey of these ten interconnected stories, the alchemy necessary to turn the Gopauls' inheritance of pain into a ""generation of gold"" requires intervention by the living and dead, the ""real"" and the mythical, the mundane and the magical, the secular and the sacred.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 OCM BOCAS PRIZE FOR CARIBBEAN LITERATURE

Pumkin Patterson dreams of a life beyond her Jamaican hometown. But what we dream of and where we belong arent always the same thing

A dazzling coming-of-age novel with an unforgettable heroine Red
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Eleven-year-old Pumpin knows a few things:

That her mother has never loved her
That Aunt Sophie does
That baking makes everything better
And France is a long way from her Jamaican home

What Pumkin doesnt know is:

What will happen when Aunt Sophie leaves for France
How far a mother can go to hurt a daughter
Why a secret can rot a family
That her cakes might just help save her life

Whatever happens, Pumkin knows she needs someone to love her.

But she just doesnt know who . . .
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Praise for Sweetness in the Skin

Serves up a taste of Jamaica that will have you craving coconut drops, gizzada and sweet potato pudding The Times

Wonderful, tender, vivid Glamour