Trinidad Noir: The Classics

By Akashic Books

Trinidad Noir: The Classics will be published simultaneously in paperback and eBook formats.

Featuring reprints of classic stories (and poems) by: C.L.R. James, Derek Walcott, Samuel Selvon, Eric Roach, V.S. Naipaul, Harold Sonny Ladoo, Michael Anthony, Willi Chen, Earl Lovelace, Robert Antoni, Elizabeth Nunez, Ismith Khan, Lawrence Scott, Wayne Brown, Jennifer Rahim, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, Sharon Millar, Barbara Jenkins, and Shani Mootoo.

The editors, Earl Lovelace and Robert Antoni, are two of the most respected authors of contemporary Caribbean letters.

Akashic's promotion will have a strong social media component.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akashic Books
• Release date: May 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781617755606

Reviews for Trinidad Noir

[gailnyoka · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoy the cadence and the sound of the English language in the mouths of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, so it was a pleasure to see it reproduced in so many of the stories in this collection. The 'classics' refers to the most well-known of Trinidad's authors: VS Naipaul, Samuel Selvon, going as far back as a 1927 story by CLR James. The chronological sequence of the stories presents a picture of the changing people and society over the almost ninety years covered by the stories. In the older stories, male authors predominate, but women are well represented in the newer stories. The story of Trinidad must include the story of emigration, and one of my favorites is the 1957 story, The Cricket Match. Here, Samuel Selvon captures, with humor, Trinidadians in the London of the 1950s. This is the only explicit 'away' story, but others touch on characters with relatives who live elsewhere, or are trying to move away. However, most of all, the stories are of the people who live in that two-island nation.

[campingmomma · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What can I say about the Akashic Noir series that I haven't said before? Love them! And Trinidad Noir: The Classics was no exception. While I enjoyed the stories in Parts I & II, as usual for me I struggled with the endings that I felt left me hanging or left me to draw my own conclusions. I prefer neat tidy bows at the end of my stories written by the author not left to my own imagination and I felt there was a lot of that in the first part of the book. It's just my personal preference. That being said nearly every story grabbed my attention and kept me engaged. In Part III Uncle Zoltan by Ismith Khan & The Vagrant by Wayne Brown really stood out for their creative storylines. I found my strongest connection with the stories in Part IV. Two of my favorites were The Party by Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw & Ghost Story by Barbara Jenkins. The Party was about a woman who was preparing for her young daughters birthday party amid the chaos of her marriage falling apart in a city filled with crime, drugs and kidnappings. Ghost Story really stood out for me. It was about a vagrant named Ghost who picks fruit from peoples trees without their permission and sells them to others. When the trees get infested with a disease the fruit dies off and he starts stealing from people and as a result gets shot. After recovering from the shooting he finds Jesus and later starts picking fruit to share with the community in a way in which to distribute the fruit evenly amongst the people benefiting everyone.

[charlottem_63 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I like short stories when I travel, which is often. These were good but I usually read myself to sleep and these were pretty menacing for bed time stories.

[tucker.christine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This review really got away from me. I received and read this book about a week before I left for vacation in April, but decided I'd write the review when I got home. Then I forgot about it - not just the review, but the entire book itself! I saw it on my end table last week so I picked it and started reading. It wasn't until I started on the fourth story "Man-Man" that I remembered that I had already read this. I usually love this series but I found this entry underwhelming and unmemorable.

[macnoid · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

trinidad noir ....an interesting book....unlike any I have read. The short stories were often a bit strange...and felt very foreign. I found it was best to read only one or two at a time...and strangely, even though I wasn't sure I even liked the book, I'd find myself thinking about the stories later! So...an interesting read....even if I can't really say I 'enjoyed' it. I will say it was interesting and thought provoking!

[mistermelon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Definitely a mixed bag. Definitely enjoyed it, and really like getting these ARC giveaways because they get me out of my type of novels I normally gravitate to. This collection of short stories by Trinidadian authors are printed chronologically by publication date, over the past century. Some of the stories I thought were pretty darn good; others were ho-hum. One note; I guess a large group of people on the island speak English, but in a very different dialect, so for people who don't like reading a lot of dialogue that's not in "proper" English, this will be a rough read. It has a few poems included, but I don't enjoy poetry so I skipped over those completely; I'll edit my review if my wife reads them and lets me know what she thinks.**I received a free copy of this book in exchange for this unbiased review.**

[diana.hauser · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

TRINIDAD NOIR: THE CLASSICS is edited by Earl Lovelace and Robert Antoni.It is a collection of reprints of classic stories and poems from celebrated Caribbean authors.The editors are also the authors of two of the stories in this title. Publishing dates range from 1927 to 2015. While the stories “are not all focused on crime (a common element of the noir genre), they direct attention to the violence of a society that has not quite settled accounts with the casualties of enslavement and indentureship.”The book contains a Table of Contents; an outline map of Trinidad Tobago showing where the various stories take place (I like this map); an Introduction; About the Contributors (very interesting profiles) and Permissions. There are 19 stories (and poems) divided into four parts: Part I - Leaving Colonialism; Part II - Facing Independence; Part III - Looking In; Part IV - Losing Control.I quite liked the story LA DIVINA PASTORA by C.L.R. James, taking place in North Trace; originally published in 1927. This story was very eerie.I read and reread the poem THE SCHOONER FLIGHT by Derek Walcott, taking place in the area of Blanchisseuse; originally published in 1979. “I try to forget what happiness was, and when that don’t work, I study the stars.”THE PARTY by Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, taking place in the Santa Cruz Valley, first published in 2007. The story was one of desperation, sadness and terrible violence (boiling under the surface). From the ashes falling on the birthday cake to the seething bitterness of Alice to the rented pit bulls patrolling the yard - it was terribly depressing and scary.Another story I liked (I really did like them all) was THE BONNAIRE SILK COTTON TREE by Shani Mootoo, originally published in 2015, taking place in Foothills, Northern Range. I was familiar with the author, Shani Mootoo, having just finished her book MOVING FORWARD SLOWLY LIKE A CRAB. I like her style and with characters like the attention-seeking priest, Father O’Leary, desperate for independence and acceptance, Nandita Sharma, and the sinister ‘jumbie’ - something disastrous is bound to happen.I like the stories being in sequence according to publication. The reader can see a progression of sorts in the culture and character (and despair) of the emerging country.Some of the stories were written in a regional patois which made it slow-going at times. But it added realism and character to the characters, the locale and the story line.I like this noir series from Akashic Books very much. I thank Akashic Books for sending me this book in exchange for an unbiased and honest review. The title is part of Library Thing’s Early Review program.