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Miguel Street
V. S. Naipaul
Short stories, 1959
Linked stories of eccentric characters on a Port of Spain street in the 1940s, capturing calypso-era urban Trinidad.
Books by country North America
Books set in Trinidad and Tobago
Five books by writers from Trinidad and Tobago, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with Miguel Street and A House for Mr Biswas.
About the literature of Trinidad and Tobago
V. S. Naipaul, born in Trinidad, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001 and is the best-known writer of Trinidad and Tobago. Most writing is in English, with Trinidadian speech in dialogue, and it sits alongside calypso, the sung topical verse of Carnival. The legacies of slavery and Indian indenture run through its books.
Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas traces a Hindu Indo-Trinidadian man's search for a home of his own. C. L. R. James's Beyond a Boundary is a cricket memoir that also portrays colonial Port of Spain. Monique Roffey's The White Woman on the Green Bicycle moves through Port of Spain from the 1950s to the post-independence years. Sharon Millar's The Whale House and Other Stories looks at class, race and domestic life in contemporary Trinidad.
By writers from Trinidad and Tobago
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A House for Mr Biswas
V. S. Naipaul
Novel, 1961
Hindu Indo-Trinidadian family life in rural Trinidad and Port of Spain, tracing colonial-era aspiration, poverty and the search for a home.
Beyond a Boundary
C. L. R. James
Memoir, 1963
A cricket memoir that captures colonial Port of Spain, with its class and colour hierarchies and its street and club life.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
Monique Roffey
Novel, 2009
A novel of Port of Spain from the 1950s to the post-independence years, following a British couple and the city around them.
The Whale House and Other Stories
Sharon Millar
Short stories, 2015
Short stories of contemporary Trinidad, covering class, race and domestic life in and around Port of Spain.
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