The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat. All Souls Rising by Madison Smartt Bell. The first two books are about the Dominican and Haitian diasporas: what people left behind and what/who they found when they came to USA. The third book is about the only successful slave uprising in the Western Hemisphere (it occurred in the 18th century), essentially setting the scenes for what was to come in the Diaz and Danticat books. The horror, pain, and suffering described in these books, inflicted by one group of humans on another, is barely bearable to read; how people survive is beyond comprehension. And yet, these horrors and this suffering continues all over the world.
Other contemporary Caribbean authors to explore are: Jamaica Kincaid, Caryl Phillips, VS Naipaul
