Forthcoming Young Adult novel by Diana McCaulay

Papillote Press is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of Gone to Drift by the award-winning Jamaican writer Diana McCaulay. This young adult novel, which won second prize in the CODE’s Burt Award for Caribbean Literature (2015), will be published on 29 February 2016.

Gone to Drift tells the story of a 12-year-old Jamaican boy, Lloyd, and his search for his beloved grandfather, a fisherman who is lost at sea. An adventure story about a boy confronted with difficult moral choices it will inspire its readers to choose bravery over cowardice and to follow their hearts. 

"This is my first novel for young adults," says McCaulay, "and as reading meant so much to me as a teenager, I'm hoping Gone to Drift will be read and enjoyed by many Caribbean young people. I wanted to pay tribute to our long tradition of fishermen, and I'm so grateful the Burt Award has made that possible. I'm also thrilled that Gone to Drift will be published by Papillote Press, a Caribbean publishing house which I've long admired." 

Gone to Drift follows on from McCaulay’s two acclaimed novels, Dog-Heart (2010) and Huracan (2012) and is built on her 2012 Regional Commonwealth prize-winning short story, The Dolphin Catchers  (Granta Online). As well as writing, McCaulay founded and, for many years, ran the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET); she was also a popular newspaper columnist. 

As Pamela Mordecai, author of The Red Jacket, sa ys: "Gone to Drift  is a love story about Lloyd's deep affection for his grandfather, and about the author's deep love for Jamaica, its land and seas. A Jamaican coming-of-age story - realistic, often funny and deeply touching - it’s a story for adventurous boys and girls, and for grownups too." 

CODE's Burt Award for Caribbean Literature is an annual award given to English-language literary works for young adults (aged 12 through 18) written by Caribbean authors. Established by CODE - a Canadian NGO that has been supporting literacy and learning for over 55 years - with the generous support of the Literary Prizes Foundation and in partnership with the Bocas Lit Fest, the Award aims to provide  engaging and culturally relevant books for young people across the Caribbean.

Founded in 2011, the Bocas Lit Fest administers major literary prizes for Caribbean authors and organises the annual NGC Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago’s premier literary festival.

Papillote Press, based in Dominica and London, specialises in books about Dominica and the wider Caribbean. “I love this story. It entwines a tale of modern Jamaica with memories of the old ways of the sea. The reader follows Lloyd’s desperate search for his grandfather every step of the way.” says Polly Pattullo, publisher of Papillote Press.

For further information please contact the publisher: info@papillotepress.co.uk

1 Minute Book Review:The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson

Name of the book: The Chaos
Author: Nalo Hopkinson
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books 
What's the book about? "Sixteen-year-old Scotch struggles to fit in—at home she’s the perfect daughter, at school she’s provocatively sassy, and thanks to her mixed heritage, she doesn’t feel she belongs with the Caribbeans, whites, or blacks. And even more troubling, lately her skin is becoming covered in a sticky black substance that can’t be removed."
Why am I reading the book? Nalo Hopkinson is a gifted writer. She knows how to combine psychological insight with just the right detail to keep you reading. YA Lit is a new genre for her, and she is pitch perfect in capturing adolescent angst.
Quote from the book: 
"I tried not to listen to my own voice, to how off my accent sounded. Half Jamaica. Pretend Creole. If I didn’t watch myself. I turned “batty” into “baddy” too."

Where to buy: http://amzn.to/LialPR



Stephen Narain, Kelly Baker Josephs, and I are also discussing the novel @loveaxe: http://loveaxe.wordpress.com/
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New Book: The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson

THE CHAOS (reviewed on March 1, 2012) by Kirkus Reviews.


Noted for her fantasy and science fiction for adults, Hopkinson jumps triumphantly to teen literature.


Scotch’s womanly build and mixed heritage (white Jamaican dad, black American mom) made her the target of small-town school bullies. Since moving to Toronto, she’s found friends and status. Now both are threatened by the mysterious sticky black spots on her skin (she hides them under her clothes but they’re growing). When a giant bubble appears at an open-mic event, Scotch dares her brother, Rich, to touch it. He disappears, a volcano rises from Lake Ontario and chaos ripples across city and world, transforming reality in ways bizarre and hilarious, benign and malignant. A lesbian folksinger with Tamil roots becomes a purple triangle with an elephant’s trunk; jelly beans grow teeth; buried streams resurface. Scotch searches for Rich across a surreal, sensual cityscape informed by Caribbean and Russian folklore. Although what they represent and where they come are open to interpretation, the manifestations are real to everyone and must be dealt with. Hopkinson opens her YA debut conventionally but soon finds her own path, creating a unique vocabulary with which to explore and express personal identity in its myriad forms and fluidity. Anything but essentialist, she captures her characters in the act of becoming.


Rich in voice, humor and dazzling imagery, studded with edgy ideas and wildly original, this multicultural mashup—like its heroine—defies category. (Fantasy. 12 & up)





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