Books published by Peepal Tree Press Ltd

An iconic novel from a rebellious and politically active author, this story follows Jack, a sculptor and blacksmith, who idolizes the Biblical Samson as a figure of man's independence. Deciding to carve a mahogany tribute to Samson, however, becomes a more complicated affair when Jack's wife leaves him for another man. The end result is a sculpture of a blinded Samson leaning on a young boy for support. As life imitates art, Jack is struck by lightning and left blind, forcing him to rely on his friends to survive. After leading him on a journey to discover just how reliant on humanity he really is, Jack's blindness ultimately drives him to his final act of independence: his own suicide.

Chronicling the events that took place in Grenada from 1951--when workers revolted against the white owners of the sugar and cocoa estates--to the U.S. invasion in 1983, this revised and expanded edition follows headstrong Angel and her mother Doodsie as they experience the deposition of the old, corrupted leadership with conflicted emotions. As their community struggles for independence, the political conflicts in Grenada tear long-term relationships apart, provoke fratricidal killings, and allow an outrageous breach of sovereignty. Seamlessly moving between these serious events and the warmth and tensions of family life, this celebrated novel offers an informed account of the revolution and a richly developed vernacular.

From the 1930s through the dawning of a new century, these tender and moving stories underscore living life with style and hidden steel despite one's circumstances and warn against disregarding the past struggles of others. Doux Thibaut negotiates a hard life on the Caribbean island of Paz, confronting the shame of poverty and illegitimacy, the haz

The Sleepers of Roraima first published in Great Britain in 1970; The Age of the Rainmakers first published in 1971.

Seni Seneviratne delves into her father's experience of WW2, the only non-white signalman in a platoon stationed in North Africa. Sparked by a collection of photos, the poems explore the mix of male camaraderie and casual racism of that experience, but also the deep affection hinted at in the way the photographer has framed "Snowball" in his lens.

The stranger than fiction true story of Boysie Singh - Robber, Arsonist, Pirate, Mass-Murderer, Vice and Gambling King of Trinidad.

Gordon RohlehrâEUR(TM)s critical work is outstanding in the balance it achieves between its particularity and its breadth âEUR" from the detailed unpacking of a poemâEUR(TM)s inner workings, to locating Caribbean writing in the sweep of political and cultural history âEUR" and the equal respect he pays to literary and to popular cultural forms. His âEURœArticulating a Caribbean AestheticâEUR? remains a stunningly pertinent and concise account of the historical formation of the cultural shifts that framed Caribbean writing as a distinctive body of work. Indeed, along with Kamau Brathwaite, Sylvia Wynter and Kenneth Ramchand, no critic has done more to establish the subject of Caribbean writing and its distinctive aesthetics. These essays, written between 1969 to 1986, first published in radical campaigning newspapers such as Tapia and Moko, and first collected in 1992, were the work of a young academic who was both changing the university curriculum, and deeply engaged with the less privileged world outside the campus. Rohlehr catches Caribbean writing at the point when it leaves behind its nationalist hopes and begins to challenge the complex realities of independence. Few critics have written as clearly about how deeply the colonial has remained embedded in the postcolonial. What shines in RohlehrâEUR(TM)s work is not merely its depth, acuity and humanity, but its courage. He writes when his subject is still emergent, without waiting for the credibility of metropolitan endorsements as a guide to the canon. âEURœMy Strangled CityâEUR?, a record of how TrinidadâEUR(TM)s poets responded to the upsurge of revolutionary hopes, radical shams, repressions and disappointed dreams of 1964-1975 is an indispensable account of those times and the diversity of literary response that continues to speak to the present. And if in these essays Trinidad is RohlehrâEUR(TM)s primary focus, his perspective is genuinely regional. His native Guyana is always present in his thoughts and several essays show his deep interest in the cultural productions of a âEURœdreadâEUR? Jamaica, and in making insightful comparisons between, for instance, reggae and calypso.

Breanne Mc Ivor is a bold new voice in Caribbean fiction. The Trinidad of her stories is utterly contemporary but also a place defined by its folk mythologies and its cultural creations, its traditions of masking and disguises. Her stories confront the increasing economic and cultural divisions between rich and poor, the alarming rise in crime, murders and an alternative economy based on drug trafficking. Their daring is that they look both within the human psyche and back in time to make sense of this reality. The figure of the loup-garou, the violent rhetoric of the Midnight Robber - or even cannibalism lurking far off the beaten track - have become almost comic tropes of a dusty folklore. In Mc Ivor's stories they become real and terrifying daylight presences, monsters who pass among us. Her great gift as a writer is to take us to unexpected places, both to seduce us into a kind of sympathy for her monsters of greater and lesser kinds, and sometimes to reveal a capacity for redemption amongst characters we are tempted to dismiss as shallow, unlikable human beings. The problem, in a world of masks and disguises, is how to tell the difference. In these carefully crafted stories, with room for humor, though of a distinctly gothic kind, Breanne Mc Ivor reaches deep into the roots of Trinidad folk narratives to present us with very modern versions of our troubled selves.

Contemporary poetry from Black British and British Asian writers.

An anthology of the very best contemporary Caribbean short stories, edited by Jeremy Poynting and Jacob Ross.

Indira Gabriel, recently abandoned by her lover, embarks on a project to reinvigorate a dilapidated bar into something special. Like a Trinidadian Cheers, a rich cast of characters come together in this warm, funny, sexy, and bittersweet first novel.

Combining life-writing with poetic prose, Anthony Joseph gets to the heart of the man behind the music and the myth, reaching behind the sobriquet to present a holistic portrait of the calypso icon Lord Kitchener.

With a mature and accomplished voice, this novel explores the growth in presence of radical Islam within the Caribbean. Under the shadow of corporate imperialism, complete with disenfranchised islanders, corrupt government ministers, and scheming U.S.-oil companies, Beatrice Salandy finds love with Adbul, a man who is second in command in a rising radical Muslim movement. With welfare schemes, grass-roots campaigning, and an air of incorruptibility, the movement becomes wildly popular with the island's poorest classes. But as events unfold, Beatrice begins to question Adbul's sincerity and honesty, and he becomes a fascinatingly unreliable voice in this moving and timely novel.