A powerful collection of twenty-five short stories from Caribbean authors.
The islands of the Antilles share a common sea and common climate—but within this tropical world is an extraordinary diversity of race, language, and history. This rich and vibrant multiplicity comes brilliantly alive in the twenty-five short stories that make up this unique and essential anthology.
Reaching all the way back to the 1920s, and featuring the most talented Caribbean authors at work today, this collection includes stories from Juan Bosch, Lydia Cabrera, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Rene Depestre, Samuel Selvon, and Ana Lydia Vega, among many other superb writers.
The stories range in emotion from comedy to tragedy, and in narrative style from the primal simplicity of folk tales to the most sophisticated techniques of modern writing. Their locales encompass Cuba, Puerto Rico, Martinique, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Suriname, and Antigua.
Their themes touch the spectrum of human concern from domestic dilemmas and love affairs to racial strife and political violence. To read this volume is to enjoy a reading experience like no other—one that conveys with intimate honesty and powerful artistry the fertile heritage and complex drama, the burden and the strength, the pride and the passion of being an Antillean.
