The jumbie said, “We will make ourselves visible to all and sundry for that night only. Every person who get killed on this island since the beginning of the first injustice all the way to the present-day wantonness—from the native people in the days of the early Spaniards, to the slaves of the British, to the present-day victims of robberies and drug-related and poverty-related, greed-related and envy-, and jealousy-, and power-related crimes, all the people whose murderers weren’t caught. All of us on whom justice turn its back. We coming, thousands strong, head bash in, eye poke out, neck break, vagina rip apart, heart blown up, brains hanging out, hand chop off, blood dripping-dripping fuh so. You think the dead don’t bleed? Wait! You’ll see! Displaced monkeys, birds, snakes, mosquitoes, crapauds and all kind of creatures will join us too, and will provide the music to which we will shuffle. People, not realizing till later that we are the real thing, will vote us band of the century. They will run from one street to the next looking for our band because word will spread fast about ‘the band with the terrible yet amazing and mesmerizing costumes.’ They will even want to drag behind us to the sounds of forgotten animals and the beat of our shuffling feet. They will think we are so creative!
“Every cell phone and small camera will be snapping-snapping come J’ouvert morning, but next day, not one picture will actually have been captured. But we, the jumbies and duppies of Bonnaire, want to appoint you as the official photographer of our band. Is only you, and you alone, who will be able to take our pictures. See duppies drag theyselves on de streets of Port of Spain. See every Tom, Dick and Harriet snapping away with cell phone, video camera, pocket camera and expensive-fuh-so camera. See not one of them did capture a single image. Young lady here is the only one who could photograph the dead. And every face from the last decade will be recognized by the people who they left behind, including those who were responsible for their deaths, and those who have done nothing about all this crime. J’ouvert morning, the people of the island will have seen us come back from the dead. So, when they see your pictures, they will know that you didn’t use them programs that does do fancy things with pictures, but they will know that you was special enough to actually capture them. You will be feared and respected, and your art will go international. Foreign will recognize you first, as usual, and then you will be on everybody A-list here. You ready for our assignment?”
The thrill of the prospects as outlined by the jumbie sent chills of excitement down Nandita’s arms. “Where will I meet your band?” she asked, trying to appear nonchalant as she took a pen and paper from her knapsack to write down the directions.
The jumbie laughed. “You get yourself on the street, any street you want, and you will meet them.”
Nandita returned to her car, breathless again, but this time with awe and excitement. She switched on the engine and the headlamps, glanced back to make doubly sure that her camera equipment was on the backseat where she had just put it, and, in an appreciative farewell gesture, turned toward the path that had taken her into the forest. But she couldn’t see the path. She must have been rather disoriented, for even though she had just stepped off the path and into her car, the path was not where she had come from. Or where she thought she had come from. She looked again, farther up, then lower down. She was puzzled; it wasn’t possible that she’d so quickly lost her bearings.
She unbuckled herself and leaned out the window. The moon had gone back behind the clouds, and the area was dark. That was it. It was too dark to see, she reasoned. She turned the car slowly and scanned the bushes lit by the headlamps. She repeated this manoeuvre, but now in the opposite direction. But the path had vanished. She drove on slowly, stopping every few seconds and leaning out the window to look toward the back of the car. Regardless of the distance she travelled as registered on the car’s odometer, there was, she saw, no road behind her, only high bush. She was making a list of equipment she would need for J’ouvert morning just as her car reached the top of the road and met the Lady Young Highway.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Michael Anthony is a Trinidadian writer of short stories, historical works, and novels. He was born in 1930 and moved to England in 1954 on the encouragement of Canute Thomas. He began writing short stories for the BBC and he also contributed to the Barbados literary magazine BIM. His first of thirty-four books was published in 1963, and his best-known novel, Green Days by the River, is being made into a motion picture.
Robert Antoni is equal parts Trinbagonian, Bahamian, and US citizen. He is the author of five novels, his most recent being As Flies to Whatless Boys, which garnered a Guggenheim Fellowship and the OCM Bocas Prize for best book. His novels have been widely translated, and have been awarded the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and an NEA grant. He is the recipient of a NALIS Lifetime Literary Award by the Trinidad & Tobago National Library.
Wayne Brown (1944–2009) was a columnist, poet, editor, and teacher from Trinidad & Tobago. Widely known for his column In Our Time, which ran in Trinidadian, Jamaican, and Guyanese newspapers, Brown won the Commonwealth Prize for Poetry for his first collection of poems, On the Coast. He nurtured a generation of Jamaican writers through his workshops and an arts magazine which he edited for the Jamaica Observer.
Willi Chen is a Trinidadian-born Chinese writer whose work experiences include shopkeeper, baker, printer, artist, refinery operator, and entrepreneur. His art, poetry, sculpture, set design, plays, radio dramas, and short stories have won numerous international prizes. He still lives in Trinidad.
C.L.R. James (1901–1989) was a journalist, socialist theorist, and writer. He was a founder of the Pan-African movement, cricket correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, and a prolific author. James’s landmark works include the history The Black Jacobins, but he is also widely known for his writing on cricket, especially for the autobiographical Beyond a Boundary.
Barbara Jenkins is a Trinidadian writer. In her late sixties, after a teaching career and the exodus of her children, she came to writing. Her short stories have won several international awards, appearing in Pepperpot, Wasafiri, Small Axe, and the Caribbean Writer. Her debut collection, Sic Transit Wagon and Other Stories, was awarded the 2015 Guyana Caribbean Prize for Literature. Her current hobbies are swimming in Macqueripe Bay’s green-gold waters and visiting the ophthalmologist.
Ismith Khan (1925–2002) was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He attended the Queen’s Royal College and went on to become a reporter for the Trinidad Guardian. In 1948, he left Trinidad for the United States, where he earned his master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. He taught at Medgar Evers College in New York for fifteen years. He wrote three published novels and a collection of short stories.
Harold Sonny Ladoo (1945–1973) was born and grew up in Trinidad. He emigrated to Canada in 1968, where he published No Pain Like This Body. Shortly afterward, in 1973, Ladoo died an untimely and violent death on a visit home to Calcutta Settlement, Trinidad. He was twenty-eight. Ladoo’s novel Yesterdays appeared posthumously in 1974.
Earl Lovelace is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and short story writer. His many publications include the novels The Dragon Can’t Dance, Salt, and The Wine of Astonishment. His latest novel, Is Just a Movie (2011), explores Trinidad’s changing society in the aftermath of the black power movement in the 1970s. Since its publication, Lovelace has been awarded the Grand Prize for Caribbean Literature by the Regional Council of Guadeloupe and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
Sharon Millar is a Trinidadian writer who has won the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the 2012 Small Axe Short Fiction Award. Her debut collection, The Whale House and Other Stories, was short-listed for the 2016 fiction category of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. She is a part-time lecturer at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, where she teaches prose fiction (creative writing).
Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland, and grew up in Trinidad. She is a visual artist, video maker, and fiction writer. He
r novels include Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, short-listed for the Lambda Literary Award; Valmiki’s Daughter, long-listed for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize; He Drown She in the Sea, long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and Cereus Blooms at Night. Mootoo divides her time between Grenada and Canada.
V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932 and went to England on a scholarship in 1950. After four years at University College, Oxford, he began to write, and since then he has followed no other profession. He has published more than twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including A House for Mr. Biswas, A Bend in the River, and A Turn in the South. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.
Elizabeth Nunez is the Trinidadian-born author of nine novels and a memoir. Both Boundaries and Anna In-Between were New York Times Editors’ Choices; and Bruised Hibiscus won an American Book Award. Nunez received the 2015 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in nonfiction for Not for Everyday Use and a NALIS Lifetime Literary Award from the Trinidad & Tobago National Library. She is a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, CUNY. Even in Paradise is her latest novel.
Jennifer Rahim is a widely published poet, fiction writer, and literary scholar. She worked for many years as a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad. She edited and introduced two collections of literary and cultural essays with Barbara Lalla. Her poetry collection Approaching Sabbaths (2009) was awarded a Casa de las Américas Prize in 2010. Ground Level: Poems appeared in 2014. Songster and Other Stories (2007) is her first work of fiction.
Eric Roach (1915–1974) was born in Tobago, served for the South Caribbean forces in World War II, and worked in Trinidad as a teacher, public servant, and journalist. Though he devoted his later life to writing, producing many poems, plays, and short stories, his work was largely forgotten following his suicide in 1974. His collected poetry was eventually published as The Flowering Rock in 1992, cementing his legacy as a prescient and towering figure in Caribbean letters.
Lawrence Scott, a prize-winning author from Trinidad & Tobago, was awarded a NALIS Lifetime Literary Award by the National Library of Trinidad & Tobago. His most recent book is Leaving by Plane Swimming Back Underwater. His novels are: Light Falling on Bamboo, Night Calypso, Aelred’s Sin, Witchbroom, and the collection of stories Ballad for the New World. He is the editor of Golconda: Our Voices Our Lives. For more information visit www.lawrencescott.co.uk.
Samuel Selvon (1923–1994) was a Trinidadian writer best known for his novels The Lonely Londoners (1956), groundbreaking for its use of Caribbean creole, and Moses Ascending (1975). He received two Guggenheim Fellowships and the 1969 Trinidad & Tobago Hummingbird Gold Medal for Literature. In 2012 he was named the recipient of the NALIS Lifetime Literary Award by the National Library of Trinidad & Tobago.
Derek Walcott is a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He moved to Trinidad in 1953, where he cofounded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1981 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1988, among many other honors. His latest work, a book of poetry based on the art of Peter Doig, was published in 2016.
Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw was born in Trinidad and is a senior lecturer in French and Francophone literatures at the University of the West Indies. She is the author of a collection of short stories, Four Taxis Facing North, and the novel Mrs B. Her short stories have been widely anthologized and translated. She has also coedited several works, including Border Crossings: A Trilingual Anthology of Caribbean Women Writers and Caribbean Research: Literature, Discourse and Culture.
ABOUT THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES
The Akashic Books Noir series was launched in 2004 with the award-winning anthology, Brooklyn Noir. Each book is comprised of all new stories, each taking place within a distinct location within the city of the book. Stories in the series have won multiple Edgar, Shamus, and Hammett awards and the volumes have been translated into 10 languages. Every book is available on our website, as eBooks from your favorite vendor, and in print at online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. For more information on the series, including an up-to-date list of available titles, please visit www.akashicbooks.com/noirseries.htm.
NOW AVAILABLE IN THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES
BALTIMORE NOIR, edited by LAURA LIPPMAN
BEIRUT NOIR (LEBANON), edited by IMAN HUMAYDAN
BELFAST NOIR (NORTHERN IRELAND), edited by ADRIAN MCKINTY & STUART NEVILLE
BOSTON NOIR, edited by DENNIS LEHANE
BOSTON NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by DENNIS LEHANE, JAIME CLARKE & MARY COTTON
BRONX NOIR, edited by S.J. ROZAN
BROOKLYN NOIR, edited by TIM MCLOUGHLIN
BROOKLYN NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by TIM MCLOUGHLIN
BROOKLYN NOIR 3: NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, edited by TIM MCLOUGHLIN & THOMAS ADCOCK
BUFFALO NOIR, edited by BRIGID HUGHES & ED PARK
CAPE COD NOIR, edited by DAVID L. ULIN
CHICAGO NOIR, edited by NEAL POLLACK
CHICAGO NOIR: THE CLASSICS edited by JOE MENO
COPENHAGEN NOIR (DENMARK), edited by BO TAO MICHAËLIS
DALLAS NOIR, edited by DAVID HALE SMITH
D.C. NOIR, edited by GEORGE PELECANOS
D.C. NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by GEORGE PELECANOS
DELHI NOIR (INDIA), edited by HIRSH SAWHNEY
DETROIT NOIR, edited by E.J. OLSEN & JOHN C. HOCKING
DUBLIN NOIR (IRELAND), edited by KEN BRUEN
HAITI NOIR, edited by EDWIDGE DANTICAT
HAITI NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by EDWIDGE DANTICAT
HAVANA NOIR (CUBA), edited by ACHY OBEJAS
HELSINKI NOIR, (FINLAND) edited by JAMES THOMPSON
INDIAN COUNTRY NOIR, edited by SARAH CORTEZ & LIZ MARTÍNEZ
ISTANBUL NOIR (TURKEY), edited by MUSTAFA ZIYALAN & AMY SPANGLER
KANSAS CITY NOIR, edited by STEVE PAUL
KINGSTON NOIR (JAMAICA), edited by COLIN CHANNER
LAS VEGAS NOIR, edited by JARRET KEENE & TODD JAMES PIERCE
LONDON NOIR (ENGLAND), edited by CATHI UNSWORTH
LONE STAR NOIR, edited by BOBY BYRD & JOHNNY BYRD
LONG ISLAND NOIR, edited by KAYLIE JONES
LOS ANGELES NOIR, edited by DENISE HAMILTON
LOS ANGELES NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by DENISE HAMILTON
MANHATTAN NOIR, edited by LAWRENCE BLOCK
MANHATTAN NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by LAWRENCE BLOCK
MANILA NOIR, edited by JESSICA HAGEDORN
MARSEILLE NOIR, (FRANCE) edited by CEDRIC FABRE
MEMPHIS NOIR, edited by LAUREEN P. CANTWELL & LEONARD GILL
MEXICO CITY NOIR (MEXICO), edited by PACO I. TAIBO II
MIAMI NOIR, edited by LES STANDIFORD
MOSCOW NOIR (RUSSIA), edited by NATALIA SMIRNOVA & JULIA GOUMEN
MUMBAI NOIR (INDIA), edited by ALTAF TYREWALA
NEW JERSEY NOIR, edited by JOYCE CAROL OATES
NEW ORLEANS NOIR, edited by JULIE SMITH
NEW ORLEANS NOIR: THE CLASSICS, edited by JULIE SMITH
ORANGE COUNTY NOIR, edited by GARY PHILLIPS
PARIS NOIR (FRANCE), edited by AURéLIEN MASSON
PHILADELPHIA NOIR, edited by CARLIN ROMANO
PHOENIX NOIR, edited by PATRICK MILLIKIN
PITTSBURGH NOIR, edited by KATHLEEN GEORGE
PORTLAND NOIR, edited by KEVIN SAMPSELL
PRISON NOIR, edited by JOYCE CAROL OATES
PROVIDENCE NOIR, edited by ANN HOOD
QUEENS NOIR, edited by ROBERT KNIGHTLY
RICHMOND NOIR, edited by ANDREW BLOSSOM, BRIAN CASTLEBERRY & TOM DE HAVEN
ROME NOIR (ITALY), edited by CHIARA STANGALINO & MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI
SAN DIEGO NOIR, edited by MARYELIZABETH HART
SAN FRANCISCO NOIR, edited by PETER MARAVELIS
SAN FR
ANCISCO NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by PETER MARAVELIS
SEATTLE NOIR, edited by CURT COLBERT
SINGAPORE NOIR, edited by CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN
STATEN ISLAND NOIR, edited by PATRICIA SMITH
STOCKHOLM NOIR (SWEDEN), edited by NATHAN LARSON & CARL-MICHAEL EDENBORG
ST. PETERSBURG NOIR, edited by NATALIA SMIRNOVA & JULIA GOUMEN
TEHRAN NOIR (IRAN), edited by SALAR ABDOH
TEL AVIV NOIR (ISRAEL), edited by ETGAR KERET & ASSAF GAVRON
TORONTO NOIR (CANADA), edited by JANINE ARMIN & NATHANIEL G. MORE
TRINIDAD NOIR (TRINIDAD & TOBAGO), edited by LISA ALEN-AGOSTINI & JEANNE MASON
TWIN CITIES NOIR, edited by JULIE SCHAPER & STEVEN HORWITZ
USA NOIR: BEST OF THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES, edited by JOHNNY TEMPLE
VENICE NOIR (ITALY), edited by MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI
WALL STREET NOIR, edited by PETER SPIEGELMAN
ZAGREB NOIR (CROATIA), edited by IVAN SRSEN
FORTHCOMING
ACCRA NOIR (GHANA), edited by MERI NANA-AMA DANQUAH
ADDIS ABABA NOIR (ETHIOPIA), edited by MAAZA MENGISTE
ATLANTA NOIR, edited by TAYARI JONES
BAGHDAD NOIR (IRAQ), edited by SAMUEL SHIMON
BOGOTÁ NOIR (COLOMBIA), edited by ANDREA MONTEJO
BRUSSELS NOIR (BELGIUM), edited by MICHEL DUFRANNE
BUENOS AIRES NOIR (ARGENTINA), edited by ERNESTO MALLO
JERUSALEM NOIR, edited by DROR MISHANI
LAGOS NOIR (NIGERIA), edited by CHRIS ABANI
MARRAKECH NOIR (MOROCCO), edited by YASSIN ADNAN
MISSISSIPPI NOIR, edited by TOM FRANKLIN
MONTREAL NOIR (CANADA), edited by JOHN MCFETRIDGE & JACQUES FILIPPI
NEW HAVEN NOIR edited by AMY BLOOM
OAKLAND NOIR edited by JERRY THOMPSON AND EDDIE MULLER
SAN JUAN NOIR, (PUERTO RICO) edited by MAYRA SANTOS-FEBRES