Hello, readers! It is Monday again! As it is Monday, welcome to another #5OnMyTBR update. The rule is relatively simple. I must pick five books from my to-be-read piles that fit the week’s theme.

This week’s theme: No Prompt

Since there is still no prompt this week, I will be featuring works of Caribbean literature. This aligns with my current literary journey; I have commenced a journey across the vast landscape of American literature, which also covers Caribbean literature. Here are some other works of Caribbean literature I am looking forward to.

5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook where you choose five books from your to-be-read pile that fit that week’s theme. If you’d like more info, head over to the announcement post!

itle: Omeros
Author: Sir Derek Walcott
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publishing Date: 1996 (1990)
No. of Pages: 325

Synopsis: 

A poem in five books, of circular narrative design, titled with the Greek name for Homer, which simultaneously charts two currents of history: the visible history charted in events—the tribal losses of the American Indian, the tragedy of African enslavement—and the interior, unwritten epic fashioned from the suffering of the individual in exile. (Source: Goodreads)

Title: A Small Place
Author: Jamaica Kincaid
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publishing Date: 2000 (1988)
No. of Pages: 81

Synopsis: 

Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright, A Small Place magnifies our vision of one small place with Swiftian wit and precision. Jamaica Kincaid’s expansive essay candidly appraises the ten-by-twelve mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up, and makes palpable the impact of European colonization and tourism. The book is a missive to the traveler, whether American or European, who wants to escape the banality and corruption of some large place. Kincaid, eloquent and resolute, reminds us that the Antiguan people, formerly British subjects, are unable to escape the same drawbacks of their own tiny realm – that behind the benevolent Caribbean scenery are human lives, always complex and often fraught with injustice.

Title: Half a Life
Author: V.S. Naipaul
Publisher: Vintage International
Publishing Date: October 2002 (2001)
No. of Pages: 211

Synopsis: 

Spanning three continents and an entire history of caste, class, exile, and dislocation, Half a Life is a beautifully resonant study of the fraudulent bargains that make up an identity. V.S. Naipaul’s protagonist is Willie Chandran, the son of a Brahmin ascetic and the lower-caste woman he married out of ideological spite. At an early age, Willie senses the hollowness at the core of his father’s self-denial and aspires something more genuine.

His search takes him to the immigrant and literary bohemias of 1950s London; to a facile, unsatisfying career as a writer; and, finally, to a decaying Portuguese colony in East Africa, where he finds a happiness he will then be compelled to betray. Masterfully orchestrated, at once elegiac and devastating in its portraits of colonial grandeur and pretension, Half a Life represents the pinnacle of Naipaul’s career.

Title: The Kingdom of this World
Author: Alejo Carpenter
Translator: Harriet de Onis
Publisher: The Noonday Press
Publishing Date: 1989
No. of Pages: 186

Synopsis: 

A few after its liberation from French colonialist rule, Haiti experienced a period of unsurpassed brutality, horror, and superstition under the reign of the black King Henri-Christophe. Through the eyes of the ancient slave Ti-Noel, The Kingdom of This World records the destruction of the black regime – built on the same corruption and contempt for human life that brought down the French – in an orgy of voodoo, race, hatred, erotomania, and fantastic grandeurs of false elegance.

‘Carpentier’s writing has the power and range of a cathedral organ on the eve of the Resurrection.’ ~ The New Yorker

Title: The Wine of Astonishment
Author: Earl Lovelace
Publisher: Aventura
Publishing Date: September 1984
No. of Pages: 146

Synopsis: 

Written by one of the pre-eminent literary presences of the Caribbean, The Wine of Astonishment is a deeply affecting and satisfying novel that evokes the humanity and dignity – the triumphs and disappointments – of the people of a small Trinidadian village during and after World War II, as they try to hold on to their identity amid changing times.