No Place Like Home: Setting in the Contemporary Caribbean Novel

Where does one set the modern novel in this globalized age? What are the artistic and political implications of these choices? In a modern world where stories take place across and outside of national boundaries, how does setting impact subject, tone, and point of view? This panel of Caribbean writers with ties to multiple countries reflect on how they situate the trans-national novel, and highlight narrative tools to bring geographically rich narratives to life. 
With Fabienne Josaphat, Jacqueline Bishop and Marie-Ketsia Théodore-Pharel.

In Fabienne Josaphat’s debut novel, Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow (Unnamed Press), set in 60s Haiti under the brutal rule of Francois Duvalier, a taxi driver whose activist brother has been imprisoned in the infamous Fort Dimanche, plunges himself into a dangerous scheme that might save his brother—or get them both killed. Jacqueline Bishop‘s The Gymnast and Other Positions combines short stories and essays that explore the relationship between the free imagination and the controlling and even potentially betraying power of art. Marie-Ketsia Théodore-Pharel’s Rope (Grace Donner Trilogy) begins in 1925, when a US Marine tracker captures and hangs a Haitian rebel hero, and shows the devastating and paranormal impact of the execution on Haiti, the Marine, and the generation that follows.

ReadCaribbean programs created in partnership with Sosyete Koukouy, Bocas Literary Festival and ReadJamaica, with the support of Knight Foundation and the Green Family Foundation.
ReadCaribbean se yon pwogram ki fèt grasa yon tèt ansanm avèk Sosyete Koukouy, Festival Literè Bocas, e ReadJamaica. Pwogram nan jwenn soutyen nan men Knight Foundation e Green Family Foundation.