Must-Read Books for Caribbean American Heritage Month

PEN/Hemingway Award For Debut Novel Finalist​
Shortlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

A “rich, ambitious debut novel” (The New York Times Book Review) that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Junot Diaz’s critically acclaimed collection Drown meets Janet Mock’s Emmy-winning series Pose, “in this remarkable debut…capturing the heartbreak of queer youth, a woman’s rebellion against the confines of motherhood, and, above all, the pain and power of friendship” (Adam Haslett, bestselling author of Imagine Me Gone).
 

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Cuba: An American History comes a heartbreaking yet redemptive memoir about migration, separation, and the love of one family forcing its way through the fissures of history.
 

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN HISTORY

“Full of…lively insights and lucid prose” (The Wall Street Journal) an epic, sweeping history of Cuba and its complex ties to the United States—from before the arrival of Columbus to the present day—written by one of the world’s leading historians of Cuba.
 

A powerful, groundbreaking new history of Britain and the Caribbean, challenging existing thinking about British colonization and recontextualizing the twin stories of contemporary inequality in both regions.
 

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
A New York Times Notable Book
Best Book of the Year for The Washington Post* The New Yorker * Time * The Atlantic * Los Angeles Times * NPR * Harper’s Bazaar * Vulture * Town & Country * San Francisco Chronicle * Christian Science Monitor * Mother Jones * Barack Obama
A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick

“Impossible to put down...Each lyrical line sings and soars, freeing the reader as it did the writer.” —People

With echoes of Educated and The Glass Castle, How to Say Babylon is a “lushly observed and keenly reflective chronicle” (The Washington Post), brilliantly recounting the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid religious upbringing and navigate the world on her own terms.

Barely Missing Everything meets American Street in this “well-plotted, taut page-turner” (Booklist, starred review) that looks at the darker side of light-filled Jamaica and how a tragedy and missing drug money helplessly entangle the lives of two teens who want to change their fate.
 

“One of those tales that ties you up, turns you inside-out, wrings you like a wet cloth.” —Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of Long Way Down

American Street meets Long Way Down in this searing and gritty debut novel that takes an unflinching look at the harsh realities of gang life in Jamaica and how far a teen is willing to go for family.

The colors of Hispaniola burst into life in this striking, evocative debut picture book that celebrates the joy of being Dominican.
 

This gorgeously romantic contemporary novel-in-verse from award-winning author Margarita Engle tells the “inspiring and hopeful” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) love story of two teens fighting for climate action and human rights.
 

A Golden Kite Award Winner for Young Adult Fiction

From award-winning author Margarita Engle comes a “[f]anciful, hopeful, and heartfelt” (Kirkus Reviews) love story told in verse about childhood friends, once lost and now reconnected, and their fight to protect endangered animals.