Last year, as some of you may remember, was my Year of Down Under, in which I attempted (and failed, but no matter...) to read one Australian book per month. I didn't get through all the works I wanted to (no Peter Carey, no Tim Winton!), but it still proved to be a really fascinating way to read, bringing out all sorts of interesting ways of thinking about nation and national traditions or fascinations.

So what will this year's theme be? Well, I had felt the pull of a non-English-language theme, one that would require much more reading in translation. China and Japan loomed large in these musings. But I am contemplating teaching courses in Anglophone literature more and more frequently these days, so I decided to go for a different sort of a regional focus: the Caribbean.

Below are some authors I would love to read for the first time or read more of in the next twelve months (I have also noted specific works by these authors that I own or that particularly interest me):

Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic)

In the Time of the Butterflies

Reinaldo Arenas (Cuba)

Before Night Falls

Edwidge Danticat (Haiti)

Krik? Krak!

Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua)

My Brother

Patrick Chamoiseau (Martinique)

Texaco

Paule Marshall (Barbados)

The Chosen Place, The Timeless People

V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad)

A Bend in the River

Jean Rhys (Dominica)

Quartet

Caryl Phillips (St. Kitts)

Crossing the River
A Distant Shore

Derek Walcott (Saint Lucia/Trinidad)

Omeros

Aime Cesaire (Martinique)

The Tempest

Andrea Levy (Jamaica)

Small Island

David Dabydeen (Guyana)

A Harlot's Progress

I have included (in parentheses) the part of the Caribbean these authors are most closely associated with; the literature of this region is particularly geographically complex and diasporic, so I have included authors who are of very recent (within one generation) Caribbean descent, as well as those who were born in the Caribbean, but later left, for whatever reason.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I would be particularly interested in suggestions of good general histories about the Caribbean.