Books by Caribbean and Caribbean American Authors

A groundbreaking investigation of the Caribbean as both an idyll in the American imagination and a dark laboratory of Western experimentation, revealing secrets to racial and environmental progress that impact how we live today.

The essential biography of the controversial rebel, traitor, and only king of Haiti. Henry Christophe is one of the most richly complex figures in the history of the Americas, and was, in his time, popular and famous the world over. In The First and Last King of Haiti, a brilliant, award-winning Yale Scholar unravels the still controversial enigma that he was.

A “thrilling, ambitious … intense” (Los Angeles Times) novel that explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s, from the author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf. Gripping and inventive, shocking and irresistible, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a mesmerizing modern classic of power, mystery, and insight.

Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret — Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.

A mythic love story set in Trinidad, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s radiant debut is a masterwork of lush imagination and exuberant storytelling — a spellbinding and hopeful novel about inheritance, loss, and love’s seismic power to heal.

At once cinematic yet intimate, Broughtupsy is an enthralling debut novel about a young Jamaican woman grappling with grief as she discovers her family, her home, is always just out of reach. By turns diasporic family saga, bildungsroman, and terse sexual awakening, Broughtupsy is a profoundly moving debut novel that asks: what do we truly owe our family, and what are we willing to do to savor the feeling of home?

The eagerly awaited follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestseller Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s new book gives readers an extraordinary inside look at In the Heights, his breakout Broadway debut, written with Quiara Alegría Hudes, now a Hollywood blockbuster.

Two estranged siblings delve into their mother’s hidden past — and how it all connects to her traditional Caribbean black cake — in this immersive family saga, “a character-driven, multigenerational story that’s meant to be savored” (Time).

The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and co-writer of In the Heights tells her lyrical story of coming of age against the backdrop of an ailing Philadelphia barrio, with her sprawling Puerto Rican family as a collective muse.

A daughter’s quest to understand her charismatic and troubled father, an immigrant who crosses borders both real and illusory — between sanity and madness, science and spirituality, life and death. Crux is both a riveting adventure story and a profoundly original exploration of the mysteries of our world, our most intimate relationships, and ourselves.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nicola Yoon’s daring new work of dystopian horror is a propulsive satire set in an all-Black gated community. For fans of The Sellout and Erasure, with a shocking ending you’ll never see coming. Jodi Picoult calls it “brilliant, provocative, seminal … Your book club will be discussing this one for DAYS.”

A wild, hilarious guide to life from the hosts of the hit late-night show Desus & Mero and the Bodega Boys podcast.

There’s a fine line between bending the truth and telling bold-faced lies, and Javier Perez is willing to cross it. Victim is a fearless satire about a hustler from the Bronx who sees through the veneer of diversity initiatives and decides to cash in on the odd currency of identity.

A genre-bending debut with a fiercely political heart, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores the weight of the devil’s bargain, following the lengths one man will go to for the promise of freedom. Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this book explores questions of visibility, migration, and what we owe — to ourselves, our families, and our histories.

An undocumented immigrant’s journey from a New York City homeless shelter to the top of his Princeton class. Undocumented is essential reading for the debate on immigration, but it is also an unforgettable tale of a passionate young scholar coming of age in two very different worlds.

An immigrant mother’s long-held secrets upend her daughter’s understanding of her family, her identity, and her place in the world in this powerful and dramatic memoir.

A rousing, beautifully observed, and tender-hearted debut poetry collection about identity, culture, home, and belonging — for fans of Jasmine Mans and Fatimah Asghar.

From the acclaimed author of Dreaming in Cuban, a follow-up novel that tracks four generations of the del Pino family against the tumultuous backdrops of Cuba, the U.S., Germany, and Russia in the new millennium.

The groundbreaking feminist and socialist writings of Puerto Rican author and activist Luisa Capetillo. At once a sharp critique and a celebration of the gathering fervor of world politics, A Nation of Women embraces the humanistic thinking of the early twentieth century and envisions a world in which economic and social structures can be broken down, allowing both the worker and the woman to be free.

When Isabel Perez travels to Barcelona to save her sister Beatriz, she discovers a shocking family secret in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton’s riveting novel.

An exhilarating debut novel following members of a Dominican family in New York City who take radically different paths when faced with encroaching gentrification.

A collectible hardcover thirtieth-anniversary edition of Julia Alvarez’s modern Latinx classic that gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures. In this beloved novel, the sisters tell their stories about being at home — and not at home — in America.

Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight nerd who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú — a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the United States. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere — and risk it all — in the name of love.

Set in locales from Miami and Port-au-Prince to a small unnamed country in the Caribbean and beyond, here are eight emotionally absorbing stories, rich with hard-won wisdom and humanity. At once wide in scope and intimate, Everything Inside explores with quiet power and elegance the forces that pull us together or drive us apart, sometimes in the same searing instant.