Caribbean Writers Series

Ramgolall, an old Indian cow-minder, has punished himself to save money and has built a sizeable herd. His first daughter is the long-established mistress of a well-to-do white planter. Their son, his grandson, Geoffry, light-skinned and ambitious, seems destined for success. but when Geoffry become involved with Kattree, his daughter by a second marriage, Ramgolall's world begins to fall apart (from the book's back cover).

Like the scattered islands themselves, these fragments from 31 women writers display the range and variety of Caribbean cultures and traditions. From memories of turn-of-the-century Dominica to contemporary USA, Africa and Britain, writers from Haiti to Cuba and Jamaica are included.

Margaret is fourteen and wants to help her best friend, Zulma, escape from Canada and fly back to Tobago to live with her grandmother. But, coming to terms with growing-up, relationships and responsibilities is not quite so straitforward, and the parental threat of 'Good West Indian Discipline' is never far removed. This is a charming, humorous and perceptive tale of adolescence and the friendship of two young African American girls.

"When the seductive Monica returns to her village, she wants to make a new start. But Kristoff village, set in the heart of rural Jamaica, is about to become a whirlpool of emotion. Every encounter with Monica stirs up women's dissatisfactions and men's desires. When those emotions develop into hatred and jealousy, Monica is made to pay for what she has done." "In this novel Opal Palmer Adisa brings to life a whole community and writes with understanding and compassion about the frailties of its inhabitants. Drawing on Jamaican folklore, she shows what is at the heart of village life, and how that life can be sustained."--Jacket.

Set in Guyana, this is the story of Mama King, trapped by age and infirmity, but ultimately indomitable. It is a protest at institutions that isolate, and a way of life that denies respect and responsibility for the weak.

"In Rihata, a small, sleepy backwater town in a fictitious African state, a couple and their family struggle to come to terms with each other against a background of political manoeuvring and upheaval."--Back cover.

As a black child, born in present-day London, Tyrone has always been encircled by the loving arms of his family. But this secure world begins to fragment when his grandparents are evicted and violence shatters the heart of the black community. Could help come from the far-off island that had nurtured his parents and grandparents?

"Traces the unlikely career of Ganesh Ramsumair, a failed schoolteacher and impecunious village entrepreneur, and the most beloved politician in Trinidad. To understand a little better, one has to realize that in the 1940s masseurs were the island's medical practitioners of choice."--P. of cover.

Dale's passionate relationship with Nevin is foundering. Hope and despair, jealousy and yearning battle within him. He must confront the antagonism of family, church and society to his homosexuality. A mysterious illness is threatening the gay community of late 1970s Jamaica. When Dale's friends succumb to it, his own isolation increases and he is pushed towards desperate action.