Next month we are going to look at Jamaican fiction. Same format as always - find a book, read it, talk about it. I say book but equally a poem, a short story, a play, whatever you wish. I have asked the ever reliable chatGPT to come up with a list of suggestions for anyone who is stuck:
Claude McKay (1889–1948) was a trailblazing Jamaican writer and a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance. His novel Home to Harlem tells the story of a Black soldier returning from World War I and seeking identity in the vibrant, gritty streets of Harlem. In Banana Bottom, McKay returns to Jamaica, exploring the tension between colonial education and Jamaican cultural heritage through the story of a young woman re-assimilating into rural life after time in England. His work challenged colonial norms and foregrounded Caribbean and African diasporic experience with unflinching honesty.
Una Marson (1905–1965) was Jamaica’s first major female literary voice, writing poetry, plays, and essays. Her collection Tropic Reveries and later poems like those in The Moth and the Star reflect on love, displacement, and racial pride, often from a deeply personal and feminist point of view. Marson’s work is also important for the way she used language—shifting between English and Jamaican dialects—to question colonial identity and elevate Caribbean womanhood.
Roger Mais (1905–1955) wrote with fierce political conviction and lyrical intensity. His novel Brother Man is a powerful portrayal of a Christ-like Rastafarian healer navigating Kingston’s inner city, examining spiritual purity and urban decay. The Hills Were Joyful Together gives an unsentimental yet humane view of slum life in Kingston, portraying ordinary people caught in cycles of poverty and violence. Mais was a nationalist writer who helped lay the groundwork for literary independence in Jamaica.
Victor (Vic) Reid (1913–1987) is best known for New Day, a landmark novel that uses Jamaican Creole and spans generations of a family involved in the country’s political upheavals—from the Morant Bay Rebellion to the stirrings of independence. His fiction captures the rhythms of Jamaican speech and the historical sweep of its struggles, making his work foundational for Caribbean historical fiction.
Andrew Salkey (1928–1995) focused on themes of migration, alienation, and cultural loss. In Escape to an Autumn Pavement, a Jamaican man tries to find a sense of belonging in 1960s London, wrestling with race, sexuality, and selfhood. In A Quality of Violence, set in rural Jamaica, he explores religious fanaticism and communal dynamics. Salkey’s writing is psychological and political, marked by emotional complexity and a diasporic lens.
Lorna Goodison (1947– ) is one of Jamaica’s literary treasures, blending poetry and prose with lush, lyrical language. Her memoir From Harvey River traces her family’s history, creating a vivid portrait of rural Jamaican life and women’s resilience. Her short stories, such as those in The Pain Tree, often focus on women navigating class, history, and personal trauma. Goodison’s fiction radiates a sense of spiritual and cultural rootedness.
Erna Brodber (1940– ) writes novels that resist linear time and conventional narrative, fusing folklore, African spiritual traditions, and social history. In Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home, a young woman’s fragmented inner life reflects the psychological damage of colonial education. Myal takes on themes of cultural possession and resistance through a story involving spiritual rituals and colonial mind control in a small Jamaican town. Brodber’s experimental style makes her one of the most innovative voices in Caribbean literature.
Michelle Cliff (1946–2016) wrote deeply personal, political fiction that interrogated race, class, gender, and sexual identity. Her novel Abeng follows Clare, a light-skinned Jamaican girl navigating the racial and historical contradictions of her society. The sequel, No Telephone to Heaven, further delves into her radicalization and search for belonging. Cliff’s work is notable for reclaiming silenced histories and interrogating the legacies of slavery and empire.
Marlon James (1970– ) has brought Jamaican literature to the global stage with dazzling, ambitious novels. A Brief History of Seven Killings, which won the Booker Prize, is a sprawling epic centered on the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, told through a chorus of voices from gangsters to CIA agents. His earlier novel The Book of Night Women follows a group of enslaved women plotting rebellion, rendered in raw, poetic language. James blends history, violence, and myth to powerful effect.
Kei Miller (1978– ) writes with an ear for language and a deep awareness of how power shapes geography, identity, and belief. In Augustown, he fictionalizes the true story of a flying preacher in 1920s Jamaica to explore the social, spiritual, and political forces of a fictional ghetto. The novel moves fluidly through time, memory, and myth, blending magical realism with sharp social critique. Miller’s work often centers on the tension between colonial structures and local knowledge systems.
