I adored both my visits to Barbados & enjoyed our monthly Barbadian read (Redemption in Indigo) so am happy to share some additional reads related to the country.
Below you’ll find 13 reads by Barbadian authors about other countries as well as books about Barbados written by authors from around the world.
I’m also happy to say that we’ve added 4 new books about Barbados written by native authors to our global reading list.
With the wide variety of genres & books, you’re bound to find at least one or two to add to your ever-growing TBR list.
Happy reading!
Written by an author who immigrated to the US from Trinidad:
“A novel of family, privilege, and poverty, described as ‘King Lear in the Caribbean.’” - O, The Oprah Magazine
A New York Post Must-Read Book
”Peter Ducksworth, a Trinidadian widower of English ancestry, retires to Barbados, believing he will find an earthly paradise there. He decides to divide his land among his three daughters while he is alive, his intention not unlike that of King Lear, who hoped ‘That future strife/May be prevented now.’ But Lear made the fatal mistake of confusing flattery with love, and so does Ducksworth. Feeling snubbed by his youngest daughter, Ducksworth decides that only after he dies will she receive her portion of the land. In the meantime, he gives his two older daughters their portions, ironically setting in motion the very strife he hoped to prevent.”
“An epic tale of family betrayal and manipulation couched in superbly engaging prose and peopled with deftly drawn characters. In a story structure as rhythmic as the ebb and flow of the water surrounding Trinidad and Barbados, this revisiting of the classic story of King Lear becomes a subtle, organic exploration of politics, class, race, and privilege. A dazzling, epic triumph.” - Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“A Caribbean reimagining of King Lear that adds colonialism and racism to the story of three sisters, the men they love and their battle over the deed to their father’s beloved property.” - Ms. Magazine
Written by an author born & raised in the US by West Indian parents:
“This lyrical novel of community, betrayal, and love centers on an unforgettable matriarchal family in Barbados. Two sisters, ages ten and sixteen, are exiled from Brooklyn, New York to Bird Hill in Barbados after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live for the summer of 1989 with their grandmother Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah.
Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother’s limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations, accompanies her grandmother in her role as a midwife, and investigates their mother’s mysterious life.
This tautly paced coming-of-age story builds to a crisis when the father they barely know comes to Bird Hill to reclaim his daughters, and both Phaedra and Dionne must choose between the Brooklyn they once knew and loved, or the Barbados of their family.”
“Satisfyingly complex…Jackson’s lyrical descriptions of the island’s natural beauty and rich culture…[set] this book apart.” - Bustle
“A winning coming-of-age tale with Caribbean flavour.” - BBC
Written by an author born in the UK:
“Hell in Barbados is the powerful true story of a drug-addicted smuggler who found his salvation in the unlikeliest of places. Told with disarming honesty, the book propels the reader into the mind of an addict and shows us the depths of degradation one man sunk to before finding the inner strength to save himself.
Terry Donaldson met with success early in life but his struggle with addiction soon became an all-out war. His Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle—TV presenter by day, whilst he scoured the streets of London in search of drugs and prostitutes by night—caused him to lose everything.
Facing financial ruin, he agreed to smuggle drugs from Barbados, but was caught and sent to one of the world’s worst prisons, where he remained for over 3 years. Honest and disturbing, Hell in Barbados is the true story of how Donaldson witnessed stabbings, beatings, shootings and a full scale riot as the prison went up in flames. In this extraordinary book, he describes the true horror of prison life in the Caribbean, the depravity that brought him there, and the years of brutality he was forced to endure.”
Written by an Italian/English author about Barbados & other islands:
“Originally published in 1922, Captain Blood is just possibly the novel that gave rise to the moderndefinition of a gentleman pirate.
This is the story of Dr. Peter Blood, an Irish physician who was once a sailor and a soldier. In the aftermath of the Monmouth rebellion, Dr. Blood is arrested and convicted for treason for coming to the aid of a wounded rebel. The sentence for treason is death, but King James II has the sentence commuted and, instead, deports him to a tropical colony at Bridgetown, Barbados where he is sold as a slave at auction.
Soon, Dr. Blood encounters romantic inspiration, conflict, and injustice before stealing a ship to become the boldest and most fearless of pirates among the islands—the famous and invincible Captain Blood. But all the glory of his adventures mean nothing, for the woman he loves cannot love a thief and pirate.
This classic romantic pirate tale of adventure has continued to thrill generations of readers for almost a century.”
Written by an author from the US:
“Tense, atmospheric, and gorgeously written, The Summer Country is a novel to savor!” – Kate Quinn, author of The Huntress and The Alice Network
“A brilliant, multigenerational saga in the tradition of The Thorn Birds and North and South, bestselling historical novelist Willig delivers her biggest, boldest, and most ambitious novel yet—a sweeping Victorian epic of lost love, lies, jealousy, and rebellion set in colonial Barbados.
Barbados, 1854: Emily Dawson has always been the poor cousin in a prosperous English merchant clan-- merely a vicar’s daughter, and a reform-minded vicar’s daughter, at that. Everyone knows that the family’s lucrative shipping business will go to her cousin, Adam, one day. But when her grandfather dies, Emily receives an unexpected inheritance: Peverills, a sugar plantation—a plantation her grandfather never told anyone he owned.
When Emily accompanies her cousin and his new wife to Barbados, she finds Peverills a burnt-out shell, reduced to ruins in 1816, when a rising of enslaved people sent the island up in flames. Rumors swirl around the plantation; people whisper of ghosts.
Why would her practical-minded grandfather leave her a property in ruins? Why are the neighboring plantation owners, the Davenants, so eager to acquire Peverills? The answer lies in the past— a tangled history of lies, greed, clandestine love, heartbreaking betrayal, and a bold bid for freedom.
The Summer Country will beguile readers with its rendering of families, heartbreak, and the endurance of hope against all odds.“
Written by an author from the UK:
“Family threatened on vacation.
Hunted and with no chance of rescue.
How would you survive?
An idyllic family vacation in Barbados goes terribly wrong when Torsten Dahl is spotted by the one man with reason to hate him most in all the world.
With his marriage already crumbling and his defenses down, Dahl is finding it hard to switch between the soldier’s discipline and a family unit. When their hotel is attacked by gunmen they are forced to flee blindly with no phones, no ID, and no money. It gets worse when Dahl realizes his wife, two daughters and himself are being singled out and hunted down by a dangerous army that includes corrupt local authorities.
As the chase continues through Barbados’s darkening streets, aboard a pirate cruise ship, and amidst a festive carnival parade, Dahl realizes there are even deeper nightmares abroad tonight. The island’s prime minister is under threat. The leader of one of the world’s most violent drug cartels has arrived.
And though instincts say run, hide, just survive, there is only one thing a man like Dahl will do when his wife and daughters come under direct threat—stand his ground.”
Written by an author born in Jamaica of Barbadian parents, who grew up in the US & Caribbean before moving to the UK:
“Brilliantly weaving together threads of family history, political history, social history, and agricultural history into a vivid quilt covering the evolution of sugar." - Publishers Weekly Starred Review
“In the late 1630s, the author’s earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way: the farming of sugar cane, and the swiftly increasing demands for sugar worldwide, would not only lift George Ashby from abject poverty and shape the lives of his descendants, but it would also bind together ambitious white entrepreneurs and enslaved black workers in a strangling embrace. Stuart uses her own family story—from the 17th century through the present—as the pivot for this epic tale of migration, settlement, survival, slavery and the making of the Americas.
Interspersing the tectonic shifts of colonial history with her family’s experience, Stuart explores the interconnected themes of settlement, sugar and slavery with extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity. In examining how these forces shaped her own family—its genealogy, intimate relationships, circumstances of birth, varying hues of skin—she illuminates how her family, among millions of others like it, in turn transformed the society in which they lived, and how that interchange continues to this day. Shifting between personal and global history, Stuart gives us a deepened understanding of the connections between continents, between black and white, between men and women, between the free and the enslaved. It is a story brought to life with riveting and unparalleled immediacy, a story of fundamental importance to the making of our world.”
Written by a mother-daughter partnership by authors born in St. Kitts & Trinidad who then lived in Barbados before moving to the UK:
“A cracking good yarn! An intriguing ‘who do you think you are’ story…a crossover genre of historic mystery and romance set in England and Barbados—she went in search of history and found her own future.
Becky has lost her job and her direction in life so is thrilled when she gets the chance to go to Barbados and research the exiled Monmouth rebels. But the Caribbean paradise isn't all that it seems. The old plantation house is beautiful, but lonely, and the locals are unfriendly. Becky encounters obstacles, prejudice, and comic romantic complications.
As her research becomes an obsession, one of the rebel descendants, who still works the same land as his ancestors, begins to get a hold on her mind. Is she living in a fantasy, or is this really an island of long memories? She soon finds that she is not the only one being led by the past.”
Written by an author from the US:
“What is it about turning forty that makes a woman take a look at where she’s been and where she’s going?
For ActivGirl CEO Catherine Camilleri, it is a crossroads that has her wondering where she went off course. Divorced without children, life isn’t what she had pictured for herself twenty years ago. Not up to admitting any of this in front of friends and family, she bails on the surprise party being thrown for her and books a last-minute trip to Barbados for a stay at the luxurious hotel where she’d spent her honeymoon ten years before. Is she going back to mourn the marriage she’d thought would last forever? Or in an attempt to chase out of her heart for good a betrayal that forever changed her?
Anders Walker might be just the ticket for that. After a brief career on Wall Street and a life experience that turned his world upside down, Anders took off the golden handcuffs and walked away for good. When he spots Catherine checking in on arrival at the hotel, he challenges her to try his spin class. He sees a woman who no longer considers herself someone a guy like him would be attracted to. Except that she’s wrong. In Catherine, he recognizes a woman who defines herself by rejection. He sees, too, that she has made work her life. But he’s learned that there is so much more to living. Simple things like swimming with sea turtles. And watching the sun sink on a Caribbean horizon. He’s got two weeks to prove it to her, to make sure she will always remember that birthday in Barbados.”
A US author born of Barbadian parents who spent some time in Barbados writing about the US & Barbados:
“An unforgettable novel, written with pride and anger, with rebellion and tears.” - Herald Tribune Book Review
“Passionate, compelling . . . an impressive accomplishment.” - Saturday Review
“Set in Brooklyn during the Depression and World War II, Brown Girl, Brownstones is the enduring story of a most extraordinary young woman. Selina Boyce, the daughter of Barbadian immigrants, is caught between the struggles of her hard-working, ambitious mother, who wants to ‘buy house’ and educate her daughters, and her father, who longs to return to the land in Barbados. Selina seeks to define her own identity and values as she struggles to surmount the racism and poverty that surround her.
Moving and powerful, Brown Girl, Brownstones is both a classic coming-of-age tale and a vivid portrait of one family's struggle to achieve the American Dream.”
Written by an author from the UK:
“Ligon's True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados is the most significant book-length English text written about the Caribbean in the seventeenth century. [It] allows one to see the contested process behind the making of the Caribbean sugar/African slavery complex.
Kupperman is one of the leading scholars of the early modern Atlantic world. . . . I cannot think of any scholar better prepared to write an introduction that places Ligon, his text, and Barbados in an Atlantic historical context.
The introduction is quite thorough, readable, and accurate; the notes [are] exemplary!” - Susan Parrish, University of Michigan
“A foundational text for the history and literature of the early Caribbean and the early Americas. Kupperman's expert Introduction and annotations . . . make this important text come alive for scholarly and undergraduate audiences alike. In all aspects, this edition is a model of historical and textual scholarship." - Ralph Robert Bauer, University of Maryland
“Scholars, students, and general readers will applaud and greatly appreciate the context Kupperman provides in her highly informative, insightful Introduction and notes. This volume offers readers the opportunity to explore Ligon's world and times, when sugar and black slavery were dramatically and aggressively transforming Caribbean society and contributing to English economic, maritime, and imperial strength.” - David Barry Gaspar, Duke University
Written by an author from Canada about Barbados & travels across the world:
“One of the Ten Best Books of the Year: New York Times Book Review
One of the Best Books of the Year:
The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Time, Entertainment Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, NPR, The Economist, Bustle, The Dallas Morning News, Slate, & Kirkus Reviews
One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of the Year
Eleven-year-old George Washington Black—or Wash—a field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is initially terrified when he is chosen as the manservant of his master’s brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning, and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human.
But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, they must abandon everything and flee together. Over the course of their travels, what brings Wash and Christopher together will tear them apart, propelling Wash ever farther across the globe in search of his true self. Spanning the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, London to Morocco, Washington Black is a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again.”
Written by a Barbadian author who moved to Canada about a Barbadian immigrant in Canada:
“From Austin Clarke, the critically acclaimed author of The Polished Hoe—winner of the Giller Prize—comes More, a powerful new novel of survival in a cold and alienating world. Certain to become a classic in contemporary world literature, More carries readers into the lonely life of an immigrant domestic—abandoned years before by a faithless husband, her life devastated by her son’s involvement in gang culture and crime—and her remarkable journey from tragedy back to the light.
An unforgettable portrait of the black immigrant experience, it is a novel to be read and remembered.”
“Clarke stays true to his politically charged style, reporting various manifestations of racism through the life of a Caribbean immigrant living in Canada. Like the author, Idora Morrison is a Barbados native living in Toronto. Her deadbeat husband has left her and her beloved teenage son has disappeared into gang life. Unable to cope, Idora loses herself in meandering stories of her life and 25 years in Toronto. She recalls daily prejudice from white Canadians, the embarrassment at her race's media degradation and her rewarding but uneasy friendship with Josephine, a white woman. Finding constant comfort in the Bible story of Jonah and the Whale, Idora finally, painfully, finds her way back to life. An introspective examination of cultural racism and the life of minorities, this detailed (though loaded) narrative should strike a chord.” - Publisher’s Weekly