CARIBBEAN READS
fiction
Join us and our host, Corinne, every month as we dive into Caribbean literature. Born and raised in Trinidad & Tobago, Corinne will pick books written by authors based in the Caribbean, and across the Caribbean diaspora. This club invites you to experience the rich culture and history of this region through their stories. This club is usually held on the last Monday of the month, unless otherwise noted.
You can find some of Corinne’s staff picks here.
Caribbean Reads will be meeting on Monday March 24th at 7 pm; we will be reading Three Leaves, Three Roots by Danielle Legros Georges.
About the book:
A Haitian-born, Boston-based poet explores the personal and political stories of the Haitians who were part of Congo’s 1960s decolonization movement
Between 1960 and 1975, thousands of Haitian professionals emigrated to Congo, a fellow Black francophone nation that emerged under the revolutionary new leadership of Patrice Lumumba. As Danielle Legros Georges writes in the introduction to this collection, these émigrés sought to “escape repression in Haiti, start new lives in Africa, and participate in a decolonizing Congo.” Among them were her parents.
Grounded in these personal and social histories, Three Leaves, Three Roots is a collection of Legros Georges’s creative reconstructions of the Haiti-Congo experience. She interweaves her verses with excerpts from primary sources such as the interviews she conducted with the Congo émigrés and letters written by people both famous and obscure, including Lumumba, Fidel Castro, and members of Legros Georges’s family.
The result is a richly layered portrayal of an era of decolonization and rebuilding, a time that sparked with both promise and vulnerability for the Pan-Africanist and Black Power movements. This collection is an important work of Haitian American poetry and of Black history: it reminds us, artfully, that movements of solidarity among people of color have always existed and always will exist.
Caribbean Reads will be meeting on Monday April 28th at 7 pm; we will be reading The House of Plain Truth by Donna Hemans.
About the book:
A lyrical, lush, evocative story about a fractured Jamaican family and a daughter determined to reclaim her home.
When Pearline receives grave news about her ailing father, she abruptly leaves Brooklyn for her childhood home in Jamaica. But Pearline isn't prepared for a tense reunion with her sisters or for her father's startling deathbed wish that she repair their long-broken family legacy and find the sister and two brothers no one has seen in more than 50 years.
Moving through time and place, from modern-day Brooklyn and Montego Bay to 1930s Havana and back again, The House of Plain Truth is a journey through generational secrets and a family coming to terms with its past.
Inspired by the author's own history, this soulful novel explores a fascinating story of immigration, divided loyalties, and what one woman must sacrifice in her attempt to find home.
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