Hi everybody, welcome back to Book Break, my name is Emma.
I know, things might seem a little bit different right now.
I've kind of got a little cold so my voice is a little bit deeper.
No I'm just kidding, I'm not actually Emma.
Hi my name is Saajid, and I am from the channel Books are my Social Life.
And if you know anything about me you would know that I am from Trinidad and Tobago, specifically
the island of Trinidad, which if you didn't know is in the Caribbean, and that's what
the subject of this video is today.
We are going to be having a little bit of a chat about Caribbean literature, and I am
going to be recommending you some Young Adult books, and some adult books, that you might
want to check out.
So definitely stick around if you're interested, which you should be.
Because why wouldn't you be?
So growing up and being here in Trinidad, you would think that I was exposed to a slew
of Caribbean literature, of books, of just shelves upon shelves of books set in the Caribbean,
about the Caribbean experience.
You're wrong.
And that's not to say that in terms of literature there's nothing out there, because there's
actually quite a lot.
But what I personally found was that even though there is a lot of Caribbean literature
out there, there's still not enough.
We have so much stories to tell, this region is so diverse and so complex and so complicated,
and people don't know that, because we are represented in the most myopic ways.
When people think about the Caribbean, you know what they think? They think Rihanna,
they think Bob Marley, they think sitting down on the beach smoking weed surfing the
waves, they think about coconut trees and, and birds, which, I mean, the noisy birds
in the background of this video aren't really helping that stereotype.
We have so much stories to tell that even we here in the region can't even conceive
of.
Seeing yourself represented in fiction and seeing yourself represented in media, it gives
us this ability to look at our experiences from a birds eye point of view, and understand
them in a more complex, nuanced way when it's packaged in the form of a story.
I want to live in a Caribbean country where when I walk into any random bookstore I will
see more Caribbean books than I do American books, and unfortunately that's just not the
case today.
But that's why this is important.
That's why the Internet is important.
That's why social media, and especially the bookish sphere of social media, BookTube,
Bookstagram, all the, all the bookish internet places.
That's why we're so important because we have the platform and we have the ability to promote
these books, so I highly encourage everybody to read some of the books that I recommend
today and to talk about on your channel, so that we can create a greater demand for more
complex authentic Caribbean stories.
Woo, that was a cute speech, thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
Now that the Ted talk is over though, let's talk about some of the books that I have to
recommend to you today.
I thought that we'd start off with some young adult selection, young adult is my specialty
also.
The first book I have to recommend is Dreams Beyond the Shore by Tamika Gibson, this is
a YA contemporary set here in Trinidad, following a girl called Chelsea and a boy called Kieran,
both of whom are from different social classes.
They both end up sparking this cute relationship, but there are some obstacles in the way, like
the fact that Chelsea's father is running to become the prime minister of the country,
and Keiran doesn't know that that prime ministerial candidate so happens to be Chelsea's father.
What I liked about this book the most though is that I saw so much of my own experience
in it. It's following them as they are finishing up their A levels, which we call CAPE here
in the Caribbean, and it was so familiar to me, the environment, the setting, the things
they had to do, going to extra lessons.
I was just astounded by how surreal the representation in this book was.
So for that reason I highly recommend it.
If you want to read a really compelling young adult story set in Trinidad, definitely you
all need to pick up The Beast of Kukuyo by Kevin Jared Hosein.
Holy word that I don't know if Book Break will allow me to say.
It's set in the 1990s in a rural community in Trinidad, and it's following a girl called
Arundati, or Run for short.
One of the girls in her village is murdered, and after her murder Arundati decides to take
it upon herself to try to solve the mystery.
And she ends up in a lot of not great things.
The book is interesting because what it deals with in that sense is a lot of the corrupt
underhand things that do go in Trinidad, but what was amazing about this book was just
how compelling and engaging and mysterious it was.
That's what it is, it is a mystery novel in many different ways.
It will have you mesmerised from beginning to end, I absolutely loved it, and it is one
of my favourites.
Speaking of one of my favourites, you all need to pick up The Art of White Roses by
Viviana Prado Nunez as well.
This is set in Cuba in 1957 and it centres around 13-year-old Adela who is very much
confused by what is going on in her society, people on her street are going missing, her
family's very much feeling the consequences of revolution and imperialism, and there's
this air of mystery to it that just keeps you very engaged throughout.
It's really a book about empathy, it's a book about understanding that grey area of humanity,
and learning to empathise with people even when they do you wrong.
It's fantastic how talented Nunez is, and she wrote this book when she was 16!
16!
You know what I was doing when I was 16?
Yeah, me neither.
I don't even remember being 16.
I also would like to recommend Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender. This is a fantastic story,
it's been making its way around BookTube so you probably heard of it.
It's about a girl called Caroline, whose mother went missing a year prior to the events of
this story, and she's coming to terms with her own sexuality as she discovers that she
likes girls.
These two aspects of her life intersect when this girl called Callinda from Barbados transfers
to her school in the US Virgin Islands.
She befriends Callinda, ends up having a huge crush on her, and enlists her to help her
find her long lost mother.
What I like about this book is not just the themes of family and parenthood, but also
the fact that this is a queer middle grade story set in the Caribbean, particularly the
US Virgin Islands.
And we just need more of that.
We need more of that.
Like, how often have you heard of that? This might be the first of its kind in many different
ways.
And for that reason alone, this book is so incredibly important because, you know what
I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about those queer Caribbean kids who feel completely and
utterly rejected by their society, going into the library, picking this book up, and seeing
the validation that they so desperately crave.
So the fact that this book exists is just monumental.
So now we're getting into the more adult books.
We first have The Yard by Aliyyah Eniath. This book is so surreal to me in so many different
ways, because it is the first book that I have ever encountered that deals with a family
who are at the intersection of Indian, Trinidadian, and Muslim.
If you didn't know, and you couldn't tell, I am an Indo-Trinidadian Muslim.
It's about a huge extended family that lives on this compound called The Yard and they
adopt a boy called Behrooz into the family.
Which is met with some trepidation from some of the other adults, and it's following Behrooz
and a couple of the other members as they grow up.
The thing about the compound, the yard, is that it is a compound, where you have an extended
family living like uncles and sisters and brothers and aunts and cousins, all living
on one compound, and it's incredible to me because that is, that was my experience growing
up, that's my experience now here where I'm sitting.
It's just such a fantastic experience to see what I know to be my own family history in
many different ways represented in a book for the very first time.
It's incredible and we need more stories like this.
Next up, I have to recommend How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs.
This is a collection of short stories and I've read a few of them so far.
But I am astounded.
Alexia Arthurs is such an incredible writer because of how complex these stories are,
yet how simple they are.
I am amazed by how this writer could make you understand the life story of a main protagonist,
and understand their context, and understand their struggles, and understand them as a
person, within like 20 pages.
Each story that I've read so far is so incredibly different.
Arthurs giving us a wide variety of experiences of what it means to be Jamaican.
I highly recommend the second story in this book though, y'all, it messed me up. I didn't
expect to get emotional, like, but I was crying by the end of it, and it's a story where you
wouldn't think that you would get emotional when you're reading it, but then you do.
So yeah, highly recommend this book, I cannot wait to finish the rest of the stories in
this collection.
I also definitely recommend that you all pick up The Sly Company of People Who Care by Rahul
Bhattacharya.
This is an interesting book because the main protagonist of this book is not from the Caribbean,
he's actually from India, and he goes to Guyana as a cricket journalist kind of person.
I'm currently reading it and so far the book doesn't really give you much about him as
a character, it moreso focuses on his observations of Guyana as an outsider which is really interesting.
He is very much sort of relaying this society that's so different from his own, so heterogeneous,
so diverse, Guyana's one of the most diverse countries on the planet.
And it's a very complicated country too, it's at the intersection of South American and
Caribbean.
So so far this book is really interesting because we're looking at our main protagonist
as he is sort of observing the nuances of how people interact, how they live, how the
society operates.
And it's almost like a bewilderment, like he's just observing, like wow, this is so
different from what I know.
It's a pretty decent book so far, and I look forward to finishing it and seeing what I
think of it overall.
The final book I have to talk about is Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn, I read
this one a couple months ago and, wow.
It messed me up.
This is a very harrowing dark sad story, so if you're looking for something uplifting
and happy, just, I'd just go watch Jojo Siwa or something.
This book is about four women who are living in Montego Bay and their community that they
live in is about to be gentrified and uprooted because a hotel wants to be constructed where
they live.
So it's about them dealing with that, but it's not just about that alone, it's about
the just corrupt nature of the tourism industry.
It's about sex work, it's about sexism, it's about poverty, it's about homophobia, colourism,
and it deals with all of these things in a way where it's not just a book trying to address
all these kind of issues, but Nicole Dennis-Benn shows how all of these oppressive systems
are interconnected, and how they combine and intersect to inform one very complex experience.
I read this back in March or February, and I'm still thinking about it, like in vivid
detail, that's how impactful it was on me.
So yeah, Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn.
And yeah, those are all the books I have to talk about with y'all today.
In the comments down below I'd love to know if you've read these books and if you have
any thoughts on them, and this is not a definitive list, do not come in the comments and be like
'Well Saajid you forgot about this book, and you forgot to talk about that'
If I forgot to talk about any books, talk about them yourself, leave them in the comments
down below, let's have a chat.
On your way down to the comments though, make sure to like this video if you liked it, and
subscribe to Book Break, follow them on social media for more Bookish Breakish content.
And if you'd like to see more of this beautiful face, head over to youtube.com/booksaremysociallife.
That's it for this video, thank you so much to Book Break for having me on their channel,
thank you so much to all of you for watching this video, I hope you have a lovely lovely
day, and until next time inshallah, keep reading.