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The Haunted Tropics: Caribbean Ghost Stories
The book is a collection of new and unpublished ghost stories written by some of the most celebrated contemporary writers of the Caribbean. It’s the first collection of its kind, and drawing on the anglophone, francophone, and hispanophone islands, the volume will be a landmark publication in Caribbean writing.
247 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 28, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 16, 2016
In the introduction to The Haunted Tropics: Caribbean Ghost Stories, editor Martin Munro says “every island of the Caribbean is the site of a deep haunting.” The anthology proves this point by offering a variety of stories which are at turns disturbing, creepy and sad. A languid feeling pervades the book, so don't read in one sitting.
July 1, 2020
‘Every island of the Caribbean is the site of a deep haunting,' Martin Munro writes in editor's introduction to this book. 'Before Columbus, the various indigenous peoples – the Arawaks, the Caribs, the Tainos – lived in relative harmony with the land, the sea and each other. Everything changed in 1492: the Amerindian people quickly were decimated, their presence erased by disease, wars and overwork. These are the Caribbean’s oldest ghosts.’
The Haunted Tropics: Caribbean Ghost Stories is a short story collection that features authors from the English-, French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean as well as authors living in the US and Canada. There are monsters that say boo in the night and more subtle, psychological forms of haunting. And, naturally, the stories also provide a commentary on the Caribbean – touching on topics from slavery (which continues to haunt the Caribbean), to our environment and questions of ecological destruction, from religion, to modern migrations.
In Dawn of the Dread, Geoffrey Philip uses humour to tackle the traditional duppy story as a mysterious disease turns Jamaicans into zombies. People speculate as to the cause of the zombification, 'Others said it was probably like the cancer that we knew the CIA had injected into Bob Marley’s toe when they gave him that pair of football shoes that cut him.'
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In Anansi, Fred D’Aguiar’s narrator tells a story about the infamous Anansi. ‘Who don’t know about Anansi? A man and a spider wrap up in one, a house and a web in the house for a bed.'
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In The Bonnaire Silk Cotton Tree by Shani Mootoo, a priest writes a weekly newspaper column, ‘Father O’Leary frequently expounds on the proliferation of the dark arts of the Caribbean, no doubt in an attempt to draw the followers of such arts toward the church, and to discourage traffic in the opposite direction.’ However, his column has an unintended effect...
As with many collections that feature different authors, there were some stories that really spoke to me and others that I didn't enjoy as much. But, overall, this is a fascinating collection and a very interesting commentary on the modern Caribbean.
The Haunted Tropics: Caribbean Ghost Stories is a short story collection that features authors from the English-, French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean as well as authors living in the US and Canada. There are monsters that say boo in the night and more subtle, psychological forms of haunting. And, naturally, the stories also provide a commentary on the Caribbean – touching on topics from slavery (which continues to haunt the Caribbean), to our environment and questions of ecological destruction, from religion, to modern migrations.
In Dawn of the Dread, Geoffrey Philip uses humour to tackle the traditional duppy story as a mysterious disease turns Jamaicans into zombies. People speculate as to the cause of the zombification, 'Others said it was probably like the cancer that we knew the CIA had injected into Bob Marley’s toe when they gave him that pair of football shoes that cut him.'
👻
In Anansi, Fred D’Aguiar’s narrator tells a story about the infamous Anansi. ‘Who don’t know about Anansi? A man and a spider wrap up in one, a house and a web in the house for a bed.'
👻
In The Bonnaire Silk Cotton Tree by Shani Mootoo, a priest writes a weekly newspaper column, ‘Father O’Leary frequently expounds on the proliferation of the dark arts of the Caribbean, no doubt in an attempt to draw the followers of such arts toward the church, and to discourage traffic in the opposite direction.’ However, his column has an unintended effect...
As with many collections that feature different authors, there were some stories that really spoke to me and others that I didn't enjoy as much. But, overall, this is a fascinating collection and a very interesting commentary on the modern Caribbean.
December 7, 2023
love me a good ghost story. there were various kinds of hauntings in this collection and i must say every single one was unnerving. some lulled you into a false sense of security and before you knew it you were waist-deep in ghastly viscera while others immediately threw you into the deep end. i didn't love-love every single story but they were all interesting in different ways. psychological horror, body horror, plain spaghetti-esque horror; spectral or otherwise, this collection has it all.
November 8, 2020
From Earl Lovelace, to Geoffrey Philp, this collection is a treasure trove filled with such eclectic stories. From ghosts, Obeah, to Anansi, and so much more, the themes, and the subject matter are expansive.
October 8, 2018
I believe its a great book with multiple short stories that highlight some of the differences in some Caribbean countries.
December 12, 2019
Love the handling of the supernatural as beyond that of apparitions and ghouls. Lots of mental 'haunting' and post-colonial ghosts.
December 10, 2020
We live these ghost stories.
November 4, 2023
Not the usual book I would read but it was enjoyable :)
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews