Jamaican culture is as rich, vibrant and diverse as its natural landscapes. Its motto, “Out of Many, One People” captures both the evolution of the island’s history and the spirit of its people. Stereotypes often paint an inaccurate picture of Jamaica, with the multi-faceted and inclusive nature of its culture being overshadowed by misconceptions about crime, drugs and the role of slavery in its history.
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Interacting with the people of Jamaica is an ideal way to counter those stereotypes and gain an accurate understanding of their diversity, complexity and deep social consciousness. Reading the works of Jamaican authors is another excellent way to discover and explore the island’s people and culture through a lens of authenticity. Jamaican literature overturns stereotypes and reveals the true heart, spirit and beauty of the island’s people and its diaspora.
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There are many informative, fascinating and inspiring works by Jamaican and diaspora authors that capture the historical origins and contemporary culture of the island and its people. This list of recommended books isn’t intended to be all-inclusive. Instead, it represents a diverse sample of the voices of Jamaica and the histories, concerns and priorities that define the contemporary Jamaican experience.
1. Small Island, Andrea Levy (2004)
This award-winning novel represents an intersection between family history and the larger history of a nation and culture . While it is a fictional work, it was inspired by the experience of Levy’s parents, who moved away from Jamaica in response to the 1948 British Nationality Act. The Act allowed a freedom of movement within the Commonwealth, inviting residents of African and Caribbean countries to relocate to other British-ruled areas. Seeking a greater range of opportunities, Levy’s parents sailed to England on the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948. Small Island represents a fictional account based onthat experience, exploring the psychological and emotional impact of immigration.
Small Island was acclaimed and recognized as a significant work upon publication. More than a decade later, it remains a relevant and poignant work because of contemporary political circumstances. Some of the individuals who came to England at that time, known as the “Windrush Generation”, have been deported despite many living there their entire lives. This scandal draws renewed attention to Levy’s classic work, contributing to a greater understanding of the pressures, pains and difficult choices that generations of immigrants faced when leaving their home countries.
After Levy experienced an awakening to her identity in terms of both gender and race, she recognized that there was little written about the black British experience and sought to fill that gap through her own works. Her novels commonly address topics related to the Jamaican diaspora within the framework of the UK, exploring the ways in which racial, cultural and national identities are negotiated.
There are some words that once spoken will split the world in two. There would be the life before you breathed them and then the altered life after they’d been said. They take a long time to find, words like that. They make you hesitate. Choose with care. – Andrea Levy
2. Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem, Paula Williams Madison (2015)
A nonfiction memoir about a woman’s search for her grandfather and a key to her self-identity, this story tracks a path of both self-discovery and a love that transcends both time and race. Spanning four generations and crossing continents, traveling between New York, Jamaica and China, Madison’s journey stands as a testimony to the power of family and the interconnected nature of our world.
Madison’s story, which was adapted to a 2014 documentary, also brings attention to the challenges faced by Chinese Jamaicans in the 20th century. Anti-Chinese violence in Jamaica led to a massive emigration of Chinese Jamaicans.
Madison, a well-known journalist, writer, businessperson, executive and CEO with a 22-year career in journalism and communications grew up in Harlem, New York, but always retained a sense of connection to her Jamaican roots. Named one of the “75 Most Powerful African Americans in Corporate America” by Black Enterprise magazine in 2005 and one of the “Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business” in 2014, she is a leader in her profession. She is concerned about the narrative that people of African descent embrace, believing that they should not be limited to the history of slavery and that a greater sense of value and peace can emerge from a complete understanding of the culture’s contribution to civilization.
Before 400 mostly Chinese people, I said, ‘I am Chinese and am trying to find my grandfather’s descendants in China.’ For the very first time in my life, no one laughed or snickered. To pronounce that I — clearly black — am Chinese didn’t produce even any head shaking. That was my huge surprise; these Chinese people believed me. And so I began to have hope. – Paula Williams Madison
3. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James (2014)
This award-winning novel weaves historical and fictional events to tell a wide-ranging story of post-colonial Jamaica during the latter half of the twentieth century. It explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976 and its aftermath, chronicling the breakdown of Jamaica’s politics into gang violence and the connections between these gangs, the Colombian drug cartel and the spread of crack to New York City and Miami. Universally acclaimed because of its extraordinary scope and its rich multiplicity of voices, A Brief History of Seven Killings is an inventive and ambitious modern epic that helped to define James as one of the great literary talents of his generation.
Jamaican-born James left his home country to escape homophobic violence and pursue better economic opportunities. His novels often display a struggle to find identity and explore themes spanning from religion and the supernatural to sexuality, violence, and colonialism.
Write about only three things: what you love, what you hate, and what you’re deeply conflicted about. – Marlon James
4. Here Comes the Sun, Nicole Dennis-Benn (2016)
This moving and engrossing novel explores homophobia, racism and sexual and economic exploitation through the eyes of three women at different stages of life. It looks at the effects of tourism on local communities, the wealth and entitlement of visitors, and the dominance of the hotel industry in Jamaica. With multifaceted and complex characters and a story that is both heartbreaking and inspiring, Dennis-Benn offered a significant contribution to Jamaican literature with this debut novel.
Born and raised in Kingston, Dennis-Benn is an acclaimed feminist and LGBT author, she explores themes of gender, sexuality and Jamaica and its diaspora in her novels. Her work often addresses issues of homophobia, the sexualization of young girls, socioeconomic inequality and race.
I write for people who have no voice, no platform, and no community. – Nicole Dennis-Benn
5. Arrival of the Snake-Woman and Other Stories, Olive Senior (2009)
This collection of powerfully engaging stories spans an approximate 150-year period in Jamaican history, from the final days of slavery to the late twentieth century. The namesake story depicts a multicultural, colonial Jamaica and the racial strife and antagonisms that arose with the arrival of indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent. The artfully written characters address the challenges of change and loyalty and explore the complex weave of class, race and ethnic and cultural identity.
Senior is a Jamaican-born writer of poetry, short stories, fiction and nonfiction. A prolific writer with a variety of award-winning works, Senior of addresses themes of Caribbean identity in terms of ethnicity and gender. Her works have been taught in schools and universities worldwide and several of her pieces have been adapted for broadcast by the BBC and CBC.
I am conscious of writing out of a sense of place. In a sense that place determines who my primary readers are: the people of Jamaica and the wider Caribbean the challenge is to particularize the universal: to speak of large events through small mouths. – Olive Senior
6. Myal, Erna Brodber (2007)
This rich and vividly written novel explores the connections between the way of life people from two perspectives in the black diaspora, Afro-Jamaicans and African-Americans. It is a story of women’s spiritual and cultural struggle in colonial Jamaica and addresses themes of cultural appropriation and the exploitation of the culture and labor of colonized peoples for imperial gain.
Jamaican-born novelist and sociologist and social activist, Brodber is a major voice in Caribbean literature. She works as freelance researcher, lecturer and writer of fiction, nonfiction and articles for the Institute for Social and Economic Research. Her work explores themes of female development, indigenous knowledge systems, and colonial resistance.
That need to preserve [history] might have come from my knowledge of how people’s history gets distorted and stolen. – Erna Brodber
7. Yardie, Victor Headley (1992)
Yardie is a fictional crime story about a young man who smuggles drugs into London from Jamaica and establishes his own drug-dealing business. It tracks the rise and fall of a criminal within the social milieu of north London’s Jamaican underworld community in the 1980s. Popular and extremely well-selling, in spite of being released by a very small publishing house, the book became adapted to a 2018 feature film by the same name, representing the directorial debut of actor Idris Elba.
Headley is a Jamaican-born British writer who moved to London at the age of 12. Music was his first love, but when encouraged by success as a journalist, he ventured into fiction and wrote his debut novel, Yardie. Subsequent works have been noted for their captivating plots and vivid characters and further film adaptations of his novels are planned.
Life is a spiritual quest, otherwise it doesn’t make sense living. People don’t know why they’re alive. The work you do in your lifetime has to benefit people. You can’t just work for yourself. – Victor Headley
8. Augustown, Kei Miller (2016)
Augustown is a vivid and haunting modern fable that dramatizes Jamaican history. It examines a woman’s struggle to overcome the challenges of race, class, collective memory and myth. Set during the country’s pre-independence period and revolving around the Revivalist movement, the novel captures a snapshot of Jamaican traditions and folklore, exploring their ties to modern beliefs.
Miller is an award-winning Jamaican poet, fiction writer, essayist, educator and blogger. Born and raised in Kingston, he left Jamaica in his twenties to study for an MA in Creative Writing in England and went on to earn a PhD in English Literature at the University of Glasgow.
My books are interested in the bits that are not shown on maps or the stories that haven’t been told, and I think my books try to stand in those silences, those erasures. Hopefully my books begin to be that map of Jamaica. But that’s why I feel I have so many more books to write, because it certainly isn’t finished yet. – Kei Miller
9. The True History of Paradise, Margaret Cezair-Thompson (2009)
Epic in scope, this novel poignantly portrays the complexities of racial identity and family in a troubled paradise. It is the story of three women born into a divided country, with the political unrest and violence of early 1980s Jamaica serving as the backdrop for a woman’s struggle with her past. Told from a variety of perspectives, this work captures the beauty, grace and brutality that are indelible parts of Jamaican history.
Cezair-Thompson is an award-winning Jamaican author and educator. The daughter of Dudley J. Thompson, a noted Jamaican QC who also served as a diplomat and cabinet minister and diplomat, the author recognizes that her father’s experiences influence her work. Although she has lived outside of Jamaica for many years, she retains strong ties to her home country. Her work explores themes of an individual’s quest for place and identity within the larger picture of history.
We are conduits of voices that won’t get their stories out otherwise. – Margaret Cezair-Thompson
10. Sweetheart, Alecia McKenzie (2011)
This novel is presented as a series of connected stories that draw a picture of a gifted artist, deceased at the outset of the story, who left Jamaica to reinvent herself in New York. The narrative is multi-layered and offers increasing levels of understanding with a forward movement of progressive revelation. While the central character is deceased, the story is rich with life and passion and represents a celebration of human connection.
Born in Kingston, McKenzie is a journalist, fiction writer and visual artist. She created the cover art for two of her books, and her paintings have been exhibited around the world in cities such as Kingston, New York and Paris. Her work is known for its memorable characters and stories that explore social issues and the inescapable aspects of experience that teach meaningful life lessons.
I think my characters are all beautiful people. But they have to struggle against all these odds… I am so proud that we as a people survive and are still so nice to others. There’s no smile like the smile of Caribbean people. – Alecia McKenzie
11. Red Jacket, Pamela Mordecai (2015)
Set during the latter half of the twentieth century in fictional locations in the Caribbean and Africa, as well as the real city of Toronto, this novel stretches across place and time in exploring family relationships and how they are influenced by history, society and politics. Mordecai’s award-winning story explores the mysteries of heritage and language in the individual search for self-identity and role within the family, community and the larger world.
Mordecai is an acclaimed Jamaican-born poet, playwright, scholar and short story writer. She is a prolific anthologist with a special interest in the literary work of Caribbean women. She has published collections of poetry, children’s books, textbooks and an anthology of short stories.
When I write, regardless of what I’m writing, or how I approach the writing task, I’ve got this image or shape or feeling inside me somewhere, a sort of embroidery pattern, a sort of magic-pencil outline, a sort of distant melody. – Pamela Mordecai
