Winners of the Caribbean Readers' Awards 2021
Winners of the Caribbean Readers' Awards 2021, are in!
Over 500 people voted in our 2021 Caribbean Readers’ Awards, and we are excited to announce the winners!
The Caribbean Readers’ Award recognizes outstanding works in Caribbean Literature, as chosen by readers across the world. The prize is given to one fiction novel, nonfiction works, short stories, and poetry.
BEST NOVEL (ADULT)
Winner: Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed
Shortlist
A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark
Dream Country by Ashaye Brown
Friendship Estate by Lynda R. Edwards
Fortune by Amanda Smyth
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
Josephine Against the Sea by Shakirah Bourne
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull
Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy
POETRY COLLECTION
Winner: Pandemic Poems by Olive Senior
Shortlist
Habitus by Radna Fabias
Pandemic Poems by Olive Senior
Running With Daffodils by Samantha R.S.
Sky Juice by Natalie Corthésy
The ABCs of Paradise Found by Karen Amanda
Thinking with Trees by Jason Allen-Paisant
What Noise Against the Cane by Desiree C. Bailey
BEST TRANSLATED WORK
Winner: Habitus by Radna Fabias
BEST NON-FICTION (BOOK)
Winner: Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller
Shortlist
Lost Stitches by Daniel Melville
The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller
BEST RWL MAGAZINE PIECE
Winner: Bomber And The Breadfruit Tree
Shortlist
Bomber And The Breadfruit Tree
Ole Jezebel By Karolyn Smith
The Soliloquy Of A Thousand Slaps By Solare
Thank you to everyone who voted and showed their support for their favourite author and works written this year. We look forward to making it even better as we traverse 2022, until then…
Stay Lit!
Winners of the Caribbean Readers' Awards 2020
Winners of our inaugural Caribbean Readers’ Award. An award 100% driven by readers celebrating outstanding works of literature.
Over 5000 people voted in our inaugural Caribbean Readers’ Awards, and we are excited to announce the winners!
The Caribbean Readers’ Award recognizes outstanding works in Caribbean Literature, as chosen by readers across the world. The prize is given to one fiction novel, YA novel, middle grade/tween novel, nonfiction works, short stories, and translated literature. Rebel Women Lit also recognized individuals who embody the spirit of Rebel Women Lit and have made recognizable contributions in their field and in the Caribbean Literature community. The selected awardees are highlighted as Rebel Women Lit Critics and Honorees.
Best Novel (Adult)
Winner: Tea by the Sea by Donna Hemans
Shortlist
A Million Aunties by Alecia McKenzie
Birthday Shot by Rilzy Adams
Black Rain Falling by Jacob Ross
Book of The Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma
Daylight Come by Diana McCaulay
Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud
Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo
Tea by the Sea by Donna Hemans
The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card
Best Young Adult Novel
Winner: Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
Shortlist
Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
Facing The Sun by Janice Lynn Mather
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
Off Track By Tamika Gibson
Best Middle Grade/Tween Novel
Winner: When Life Gives You Mangoes by Kereen Getten
Shortlist
Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar
The Madre de Aguas of Cuba (The Unicorn Rescue Society #5) by Adam Gidwitz and Emma Otheguy, illustrated by Hatem Aly
When Life Gives You Mangoes by Kereen Getten
Translated Works
Winner: The Sea Needs No Ornament / El Mar No Necesita Ornamento edited by Loretta Collins Klobah & Maria Grau Perejoan
Shortlist
The Belle Créole by Maryse Condé, translated by Nicole Simek
The Black Cathedral by Marcia Gala, translated by Anna Kushner
The Sea Needs No Ornament / El Mar No Necesita Ornamento edited by Loretta Collins Klobah & Maria Grau Perejoan
The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox
Poetry
Winner: New Voices: Selected by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica, 2017-2020
Shortlist
Feels Like Home by Natalya Muncuff
Guabancex by Celia Sorhaindo
New Voices: Selected by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica, 2017-2020
Running with Daffodils by Samantha R.S.
The Dyzgraphxst by Canisia Lubrin
The Sea Needs No Ornament / El Mar No Necesita Ornamento edited by Loretta Collins Klobah & Maria Grau Perejoan
Best Non-Fiction (Book)
Winner: Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World by Jessica Marie Johnson
Shortlist
An Autobiography of the Autobiography of Reading by Dionne Brand
Beyond Homophobia: Centring LGBTQ Experiences in the Anglophone Caribbean edited by Moji Anderson and Erin C. MacLeod
Carnival Is Woman: Feminism and Performance in Caribbean Mas edited by Frances Henry and Dwaine Plaza
Musings, Mazes, Muses, Margins, by Gordon Rohlehr
Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire by Annette Joseph-Gabriel
The Undiscovered Country by Andre Bagoo
The Millennial Mind by Daniel Francis
Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World by Jessica Marie Johnson
Non-Fiction (Individual Pieces)
Winner: Cross Words in Lockdown: #WhatIAmDoingWithMyTime by Olive Senior
Shortlist
After the Aftermath: Hurricane Dorian by Alexia Tolas
Cross Words in Lockdown: #WhatIAmDoingWithMyTime by Olive Senior
F is for …” by Joanne C. Hillhouse (from the Caribbean Literary Heritage Forgotten Caribbean Books Series)
Jewellery for Re-membering in the Afterlife of Slavery: A View From the Disappearing Beach by Maziki Thame
Life on Stilts by Carinya Sharples
Strategies to Escape the Eyes of the State” by Gervais Marsh
Short Story (Collection)
Winner: Stick No Bills by Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw
Shortlist
Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough
Stick No Bills by Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw
Short Story (Individual Pieces)
Winner: “A Bright Future for Tomorrow” by Andre J P Warner
Shortlist
A Bright Future for Tomorrow by Andre J P Warner
A Mermaid by Zaniah Pigott
Belonging to Barbuda by Barbara Arrindell
Cruising on Wrangler Avenue by Kaleb D’Aguilar
Fabled Truth by Aria-Rose Browne
Invisible Scars by Pietra Brown
Saffy’s Song by Sharma Taylor
Tom, the Ninja Crab by Cheyanne Darroux
The Beast of Barbados by William Henderson
Vizay by Hadassah K Williams
New Content Creators
Winner: @Ambi_reads on Instagram
Shortlist
ambi_reads
booksnbushtea
di_good_books_dem
oddgyalreads
rayningbooks
therosepetals_
Critics and Honorees
Kelly Josephs
Gabrielle Bellot
Shivanee Ramlochan
Joanne C. Hillhouse
The Inaugural Caribbean Readers’ Awards was live-streamed on Youtube on Sunday, January 3rd 2021 Thank you to everyone who voted and showed their support for their favourite author and works written in 2020. We look forward to making it even better in 2021, until then Stay Lit!
If you like the work Rebel Women Lit does for Caribbean Literature, become a sustaining member to support our projects.
Best Caribbean Middle Grade and Tween Books of 2020 - Readers' Award
These three books have been nominated the best three books in the Caribbean Redaers’ Awards for 2021. Have you read any?
These three books have been nominated the best three books in the Caribbean Redaers’ Awards for 2021. Have you read any?
Letters From Cuba - Ruth Behar (PenguinRandomHouse)
https://www.facebook.com/Ruth-Behar-999319306766100/
IG @ ruthbeharauthor
Twitter @ruthbehar
Things have gotten dire for Esther’s family in Poland as discrimination against Jews has intensified. With the family store shuttered, her father has fled to Cuba to work to bring his family over, and now Esther’s made sure she’s the first child to join him.
Being separated from her beloved sister is heart-wrenching, but Esther promises to write everything down that happens until they’re reunited. And many good things do happen. First of all, the Cuban people are welcoming and treat her with dignity. Then she chances upon a way to make more money than her peddler father could dream of when she discovers her talent for making lightweight dresses. All of a sudden there is a demand for her designs, and it looks like they will soon be able to afford to bring the family over. But it turns out not everyone is pleased with her success and there are pockets of anti-Semitism in Cuba too. Now it’s a race to get her family out of Poland and into Cuba before it’s too late, and to see if there is a way to stop the hate from spreading through Cuba too.
Unicorn Rescue Society The Madre de Aguas of Cuba (PenguinRandomHouse)
Adam Gidwitz (author)
Twitter @AdamGidwitz
Emma Otheguy (author)
Twitter @EmmaOtheguy
https://www.facebook.com/emma.otheguy
Hatem Aly (Illustrator)
Twitter @metahatem
In Cuba, it is believed that a mysterious water serpent–the Madre de aguas–is responsible for providing and protecting the fresh water of the island. But the serpent is missing, and a drought has gripped the island. Uchenna, Elliot, and Professor Fauna fly to Cuba and endeavor to rescue the Madre de aguas. Unfortunately, it tries to kill them. Meanwhile, the Schmoke Brothers’ goons are driving around Havana, dumping pink sludge into the sewers. What is going on? Can Elliot and Uchenna end the drought? Stop the Schmokes? Or will the creature they are trying to save just eat them instead?
When Life Gives You Mangoes - Kereen Getten (PenguinRandomHouse)
IG @kezywrites
Twitter @kereengetten
Kereengetten.com
https://www.facebook.com/kezywrites-216449442469027
Twelve-year-old Clara lives on an island that visitors call exotic. But there’s nothing exotic about it to Clara. She loves eating ripe mangos off the ground, running outside in the rain with her Papa during rainy season, and going to her secret hideout with Gaynah—even though lately she’s not acting like a best friend.
The only thing out of the ordinary for Clara is that something happened to her memory that made her forget everything that happened last summer after a hurricane hit. Sometimes things come back to her in drips like a tap that hasn’t been turned off properly. Other times her Mama fills in the blanks…only she knows those aren’t her memories and it is hard feeling like she is not like everybody else.
But this summer is going to be different for Clara. Everyone is buzzing with excitement over a new girl in the village who is not like other visitors. She is about to make big waves on the island—and give Clara a summer she won’t forget.
Best Caribbean Novels of 2020 - Readers' Awards Finalists
The Caribbean Readers’ Awards 2020 Novel Finalists.
The Caribbean Readers’ Awards is an annual celebration of Caribbean literature, selecting the best books of the year according to readers. The Awards seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of Caribbean literature, across genres, by recognising incredible feats in our storytelling culture.
We are happy to announce our fiction shortlist for the 2020 Caribbean Readers’ Award! The Caribbean Readers’ Award recognizes outstanding books in Caribbean Literature. The prize is given to one fiction novel, YA novel, middle grade/tween novel, nonfiction works, short stories, and translated literature.
A Million Aunties by Alecia McKenzie
After a personal tragedy upends his world, American-born artist Chris travels to his mother’s homeland in the Caribbean hoping to find some peace and tranquility. He plans to spend his time painting in solitude and coming to terms with his recent loss and his fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated “family.” The people he meets help him to heal, even as he supports them in unexpected ways. Told from different points of view, this is a compelling novel about unlikely love, friendship, and community, with surprises along the way.
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Birthday Shot by Rilzy Adams
Shae Abbott has always had a soft spot for her older brother’s best friend, Kofi. But that is old, old news. It was just a childhood crush. When Kofi returns to Antigua for her brother’s engagement party, Shae realizes maybe her crush isn’t such old news after all. But could Kofi be interested in the woman who used to follow him around with hearts in her eyes? Shae’s thirtieth birthday is approaching and she wonders if maybe it is finally the time to shoot her shot. After all, everyone knows birthday sex doesn’t count. Or does it?
Black Rain Falling by Jacob Ross
Delving into issues of family, class and loyalty, Black Rain Falling is a stunning crime novel that asks how far one should go to protect those they love.
On the Caribbean island of Camaho, forensics expert Michael 'Digger' Digson is in deep trouble.
His fellow CID detective Miss Stanislaus kills a man in self-defence - their superiors believe it was murder, and Digger given just six weeks to prove his friend is innocent.
While the authorities bear down on them, Digger and Miss Stanislaus investigate a shocking roadside murder, the first tremors of a storm of crime and corruption that will break over Camaho at any moment.
Book of The Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma
In 1796 Trinidad, young Rosa Rendón quietly but purposefully rebels against the life others expect her to lead. Bright, competitive, and opinionated, Rosa sees no reason she should learn to cook and keep house, for it is obvious her talents lie in running the farm she, alone, views as her birthright. But when her homeland changes from Spanish to British rule, it becomes increasingly unclear whether its free black property owners--Rosa's family among them--will be allowed to keep their assets, their land, and ultimately, their freedom.
By 1830, Rosa is living among the Crow Nation in Bighorn, Montana with her children and her husband, Edward Rose, a Crow chief. Her son Victor is of the age where he must seek his vision and become a man. But his path forward is blocked by secrets Rosa has kept from him. So Rosa must take him to where his story began and, in turn, retrace her own roots, acknowledging along the way, the painful events that forced her from the middle of an ocean to the rugged terrain of a far-away land.
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Daylight Come by Diana McCaulay
It is 2084. Climate change has made life on the Caribbean island of Bajacu a gruelling trial. The sun is so hot that people must sleep in the day and live and work at night. In a world of desperate scarcity, people who reach forty are expendable. Those who still survive in the cities and towns are ruled over by the brutal, fascistic Domins, and the order has gone out for another evacuation to less sea-threatened parts of the capital.
Sorrel can take no more and she persuades her mother, Bibi, that they should flee the city and head for higher ground in the interior. She has heard there are groups known as Tribals, bitter enemies of the Domins, who have found ways of surviving in the hills, but she also knows they will have to evade the packs of ferals, animals with a taste for human flesh. Not least she knows that the sun will kill them if they can’t find shelter.
Diana McCaulay takes the reader on a tense, threat-filled odyssey as mother and daughter attempt their escape. On the way, Sorrel learns much about the nature of self-sacrifice, maternal love and the dreadful moral choices that must be made in the cause of self-protection.
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Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud
Meet the Ramdin-Chetan family: forged through loneliness, broken by secrets, saved by love.
Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household, happy in their differences, as they build a home together. Home: the place where your navel string is buried, keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world. Happy and loving they are, until the night when a glass of rum, a heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit, driving them apart.
Brave and brilliant, steeped in affection, Love After Love asks us to consider what happens at the very brink of human forgiveness and offers hope to anyone who has loved and lost and has yet to find their way back.
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Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo
Polar Vortex is a seductive and tension-filled novel about Priya and Alex, a lesbian couple who left the big city to relocate to a bucolic countryside community. It seemed like a good way to leave their past behind and cement their newish, later-in-life relationship. But there's leaving the past behind - and then there's running away from awkward histories.
Priya has a secret - a long-standing, on-again, off-again relationship with a man, Prakash. In Priya's mind, Prakash is little more than an old friend, but in reality things are a bit complicated. Why has she never told Alex about him? Prakash has tracked Priya down in her new life, and before she realizes what she's doing, she invites him to visit.
Alex is not pleased, and soon the existing cracks in their relationship widen, revealing secrets Alex herself would have preferred to keep. Into the fissure walks Prakash, whose own agenda forces all three to face the inevitable consequences of their choices.
Tea by the Sea by Donna Hemans
A seventeen-year-old taken from her mother at birth, an Episcopal priest with a daughter whose face he cannot bear to see, a mother weary of searching for her lost child: Tea by the Sea is their story-that of a family uniting and unraveling. To find the daughter taken from her, Plum Valentine must find the child's father who walked out of a hospital with the day-old baby girl without explanation. Seventeen years later, weary of her unfruitful search, Plum sees an article in a community newspaper with a photo of the man for whom she has spent half her life searching. He has become an Episcopal priest. Her plan: confront him and walk away with the daughter he took from her. From Brooklyn to the island of Jamaica, Tea by the Sea traces Plum's circuitous route to find her daughter and how Plum's and the priest's love came apart
The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
April 1976: St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the island of Black Conch, at the start of the rainy season. A fisherman sings to himself in his pirogue, waiting for a catch—but attracts a sea-dweller he doesn’t expect.
Aycayia, a beautiful young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid, has been swimming the Caribbean Sea for centuries. And she is entranced by this man David and his song.
These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card
Stanford Solomon has a shocking, thirty-year-old secret. And it’s about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley, a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend.
And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.
These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the house boy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions.
