Conquistadora

Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys · 189 pages

Jean Rhys's reputation was made upon publication of this passionate and heartbreaking novel, in which she brings into the light one of citsion's most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". A sensual and protected young woman, the narrator grows up in the lush, natural world of the Caribbean. She is sold into marriage to the cold-hearted and prideful R

The Pirate's Daughter

Margaret Cezair-Thompson · 432 pages

Errol Flynn washes up on the island in the 'Zaca', his storm-wrecked yacht. Ida Joseph, teenaged daughter of Port Antonio's Justice of the Peace, is intrigued to learn that the 'World's Handsomest Man' is on the island, and makes it her business to meet him. For the jaded swashbuckler, Jamaica is a tropical paradise that offers adventure and the promise of personal salvation. Soon Flynn has made a

Texaco

Patrick Chamoiseau · 401 pages

Of black Martinican provenance, Patrick Chamoiseau gives us Texaco (winner of the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize), an international literary achievement, tracing one hundred and fifty years of post-slavery Caribbean history: a novel that is as much about self-affirmation engendered by memory as it is about a quest for the adequacy of its own form. In a narrative composed

Homegoing

Yaa Gyasi · 320 pages

Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the

The Kingdom of This World

Alejo Carpentier · 150 pages

Cambridge

Caryl Phillips · 187 pages

Dramatic and challenging novel about freedom and prejudice by one of the most important authors of his generationCambridge is a powerful and haunting novel set in that uneasy time between the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves. It is the story of Emily Cambridge, a young woman sent from England to visit her father's West Indian plantation, and Cambridge, a plantation s

Island Beneath the Sea

Isabel Allende · 457 pages

Though her childhood of slavery on Saint-Domingue is one of brutality and fear, Tt? finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770 to run his father's plantation, he purchases young Tt? as his bride and becomes dependent on the services of his teenaged sla

Sea of Poppies

Amitav Ghosh · 521 pages

At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slave ship The Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean; its crew a motley array of sailors, stowaways, and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, the ship boasts a diverse cast of Indians, coolies, and Westerners, from a bankrupt raja to a widowed village woman, from a mulatto American to an evang

The Polished Hoe

Austin Clarke · 480 pages

Land of Love and Drowning

Tiphanie Yanique · 468 pages

In the early 1900s, an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea, just as the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule. Orphaned by the sunk vessel are two sisters and their half-brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them. Chronicling three gen

Equator

Miguel Sousa Tavares · 374 pages

It is Lisbon in the year 1905 and our hero, Luis, a 37-year-old bachelor and owner of a small shipping business, is revelling in the luxury of Lisbon's high society.

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Monique Roffey

The Covenant

James A. Michener · 1,016 pages

A historical novel covering over 15,000 years of history in South Africa and which focuses on three principal families who settled in the region throughout the centuries. The family of Nxumalo; the van Doorns, a Dutch family; and the Saltwoods of England.

Small Island

Andrea Levy · 448 pages

The story of Small Island revolves around four characters, Hortense, Gilbert, Queenie and Bernard. They are two couples, one white Queenie and Bernard and one Black, Hortense and Gilbert. The novel is narrated in the perspective of these four characters. Plot is set in England of 1948. Gilbert is a soldier in Royal force from Jamaica. He is living in a small room in the house owned by Queenie. Th

The Marriage of Opposites

Alice Hoffman · 384 pages

"A forbidden love story set on the tropical island of St. Thomas about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro, the Father of Impressionism"--

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez · 422 pages

Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.

The Pearl Sister

Lucinda Riley · 510 pages

"From the breathtaking beaches of Thailand to the barely tamed wilds of colonial Australia, The Pearl Sister is the next captivating story in New York Times bestselling author Lucinda Riley's epic series about two women searching for a place to call home. CeCe D'Apliese has always felt like an outcast. But following the death of her father--the reclusive billionaire affectionately called Pa Salt b

Telex from Cuba

Rachel Kushner · 336 pages

Coming of age in mid-1950s Cuba where the local sugar and nickel production are controlled by American interests, Everly Lederer and KC Stites observe the indulgences and betrayals of the adult world and are swept up by the revolt led by Fidel and Rau l Castro.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

David Mitchell · 479 pages

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, decei

The Book of Night Women

Marlon James · 432 pages

From a young writer who radiates charisma and talent comes a sweeping, stylish historical novel of Jamaican slavery that can be compared only to Toni Morrison's Beloved.The Book of Night Women is a sweeping, startling novel—a true tour de force of both voice and storytelling—that tells the story of a young slave woman on a sugar plantation in Jamaica at the turn of the nineteenth century, revealin

All Souls' Rising

Madison Smartt Bell · 530 pages

One of the most prolific and gifted writers at work today presents an epic novel of astonishing depth and range about the black uprising in Haiti 200 years ago. A remarkable retelling of an episode of racial hatred at its most visceral and most unimaginably destructive, All Souls' Rising is Bell's most ambitious, most deeply satisfying novel to date.From the Hardcover edition.

Gone with the Wind

Margaret Mitchell · 864 pages

Margaret Mitchell's monumental epic of the South won a Pulitzer Prize, gave rise to the most popular motion picture of our time, and inspired a sequel that became the fastest selling novel of the century. It is one of the most popular books ever written: more than 28 million copies of the book have been sold in more than 37 countries. Today, more than 60 years after its initial publication, its ac

Queen

Alex Haley, David Stevens · 735 pages

Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Alex Haley · 704 pages

Roots is a novel written by Alex Haley and published in 1976. It portrays the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his alleged descendants in the U.S. down to Haley. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots (1977), led to a cultural se