Kingston Noir by Colin Channer

Kingston Noir by Colin Channer

"Kingston Noir subverts the simplistic sunshine/reggae/spliff-smoking image of Jamaica at almost every turn . . . The collection amply rewards the reader with a rich interplay of geographies and themes." --The Los Angeles Times

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.

Brand-new stories by: Marlon James, Kwame Dawes, Patricia Powell, Chris Abani, Marcia Douglas, Leone Ross, Kei Miller, Christopher John Farley, Ian Thomson, Thomas Glave, and Colin Channer.

From the introduction by Colin Channer:

"Every story in this collection was written by an author who knows and understands this charismatic, badass city very well. In addition to having this intimate knowledge, the eleven writers share something else--a fascination with the city's turbulent dynamics, with the way its boundaries of color, class, race, gender, ideology, and sexual privilege crisscross like storm-tangled power lines.

Still, each story is driven by its unique why would or what if . . . why would a man sleep with a woman knowing she has HIV? Why would anyone throw a school girl's corpse beneath a bus? What if a European photographer takes it on herself to document a neighborhood controlled by gangs? What if an American actress wakes up to find herself gagged and bound in a stranger's bed?

As I did with Iron Balloons, my first anthology for Akashic, I began with a simple understanding: few writers would be called, and even fewer would be chosen. Because nothing less than a classic would do."

Colin Channer is the son of a pharmacist and a police officer from Jamaica. He is regarded as one of the best writers from the Caribbean Diaspora, according to Junot Dáz. Among other publications, his poetry have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Harvard Review, The Common, and Renaissance Noire. Channer has worked at Wellesley College as a Newhouse Professor of Creative Writing and at Brandeis University as the Fannie Hurst Writer in Residence. The novella The Girl with the Golden Shoes, a profoundly touching and hypnotic journey in Edwidge Danticat's words, is one of his many written works.

In 2010, he was awarded the Silver Musgrave Prize in Literature, and he now resides in New England. Providential is his debut collection of poetry.