Thicker Than Water: New Writing from the Caribbean

by Funso Aiyejina

Overview

The latest release from Caribbean publisher Peekash Press celebrates some of the major new voices in Anglophone Caribbean literature.

Difficult parents and lost children, unfaithful spouses and spectral lovers, mysterious ancestors and fierce bloodlines—the stories, poems, and memoirs in this new anthology tackle everything that’s most complicated and thrilling about family and history in the Caribbean. Collecting new writing by finalists for the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize, a groundbreaking award administered by the Bocas Lit Fest, Thicker Than Water shows us how a new generation of Caribbean authors address perennial questions of love, betrayal, and memory in small places where personal and collective histories are often troublingly intertwined.

Featuring brand-new writing from: Lisa Allen-Agostini, Nicolette Bethel, Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné, Vashti Bowlah, Richard Georges, Zahra Gordon, Barbara Jenkins, Lelawatee Manoo-Rahming, Ira Mathur, Diana McCaulay, Sharon Millar, Monica Minott, Philip Nanton, Xavier Navarro Aquino, Shivanee Ramlochan, Judy Raymond, Hazel Simmons-McDonald, Lynn Sweeting, and Peta-Gaye V. Williams.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636140223
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Funso Aiyejina is a poet, short story writer, and playwright, born in Nigeria and living in Trinidad and Tobago. He is Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. His collection of short fiction, The Legend of the Rockhills and Other Stories, won the 2000 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa). He is a widely published critic on African and West Indian literature and culture, and deputy director of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago's annual literary festival. He is the author of Earl Lovelace (Caribbean Biography Series) and the editor of Thicker Than Water.

Table of Contents

About the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize 10

Editor's Note Funso Aiyejina 11

Three Poems: 15

The Revivalist Pockets Lily's Ring (1916)

The Suicide Sobers Lily's Son (1950)

The Lodger Breaks Lily's Rules (1974)

Nicolette Bethel

Sophia's New Shoes 23

Lelawatee Manoo-Rahming

Four Poems: 36

Doe

The Hunter Remembers the Doe

The Hunter's Wife Remembers the Fawn

The Hunter's Only Daughter Hears the Fawn Song

Howler

Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné

Unloved 42

Ira Mathur

Five Poems: 57

Little Lion

Wardian Case

Burn Antilia

The History [Or Geography] of Bays

Richard Georges

Lettuce 64

Sharon Millar

Four Poems: 81

When You Eat a Mango

Holding

Submissive

Temptation, Persuasion, Seduction

Peta-Gaye V. Williams

Dear Departed 88

Hazel Simmons-McDonald

Three Poems: 103

Ancestry

Licks Like Rain

Graveyard

Zahra Gordon

Man Crush - Take Five 109

Philip Nanton

Four Poems: 114

After the Vote

Getting Out of Poetry Way

Language of the Garden

Advice from the Boa

Lynn Sweeting

Goal 122

Barbara Jenkins

Four Poems: 133

Horse-Head

A Beautiful Corpse

Rundown

The Sea Will Claim Us All

Monica Minott

G&TS and Rita Bloody Marley 140

Lisa Allen-Agostini

On the Edges of History 149

Judy Raymond

Two Poems: 171

Returning from Exile

Construction of Structure

Xavier Navarro Aquino

The Island of My Life 175

Diana McCaulay

The Wayward Son 196

Vashti Bowlah

Three Poems: 209

The Young Indian Witch Learns How to Pray

The Nameless Girl and the Natures of Blood

My Father and His Father Before Him

Shivanee Ramlochan

Afterword Sue Hollick Ruth Borthwick Marina Salandy-Brown 215

About the Editor, Contributors, and Cover Artist 217