Debut novel ‘The God of Good Looks’ adds to growing canon of Caribbean literature

Photo: Meghan Collins Sullivan/NPR. Retrieved from npr.org

In 2023, two of the Pen/Faulkner Award finalists for fiction, Dionne Irving’s The Islands and Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You, were crafted by authors of Jamaican descent. Another, Fire Rush by Jaqueline Crooks, was a finalist for the UK Women’s Prize for Fiction.

That’s neither a blip nor an accident. A growing number of high-profile novels are coming out of the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. Exceeding expectations and barriers to entry — led by Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados — this region has long been punching above its weight on the international literary scene with writers like Marlon James and Nicole Dennis-Benn building on the legacy of Caribbean luminaries like Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul and Sam Selvon and popular storytellers like Miss Lou (Louise Bennett).

In 2023, two of the Pen/Faulkner Award finalists for fiction, Dionne Irving’s The Islands and Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You, were crafted by authors of Jamaican descent. Another, Fire Rush by Jaqueline Crooks, was a finalist for the UK Women’s Prize for Fiction.

That’s neither a blip nor an accident. A growing number of high-profile novels are coming out of the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. Exceeding expectations and barriers to entry — led by Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados — this region has long been punching above its weight on the international literary scene with writers like Marlon James and Nicole Dennis-Benn building on the legacy of Caribbean luminaries like Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul and Sam Selvon and popular storytellers like Miss Lou (Louise Bennett).

This decade-long, transnational cultural phenomenon is driven by a confluence of factors, orchestrated in part by the region’s doggedly determined book lovers (some of whom are industry insiders, some not). Kingston-based publisher Tanya Batson-Savage, founder of Blue Banyan Books, likens the region’s literary support system to a three-legged stool with international media and festivals, book prizes in the UK, and the rising influence of social media in the book world providing crucial support. The momentum of international exposure is driven largely by festivals and press coverage, especially Jamaica’s Calabash International Literary Festival, which was founded in 2001, and Trinidad and Tobago’s Bocas Lit Fest which followed in 2011, and their related developmental programming and networks (Marlon James got his first book contract after many rejections through a program tied to Calabash). Since 2016, Miami Book Fair has also featured a “Read Caribbean” program with growing following.