SEARCH for #ReadCaribbean on Instagram and almost 11,000 posts will appear as people share their favourite and latest reads by authors from the region and diaspora.
Caribbean literature continues to evolve, with emerging writers claiming awards, such as Jamaican author Marlon James who claimed the 2015 Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings, and Trinidad and Tobago-born Monique Roffey who won the Costa Book of the Year Award in 2020 for her novel The Mermaid of Black Conch.
Cindy Allman, a Jamaica-born Caribbean "bookstagrammer" based in TT, is the mind and effervescent energy behind the #ReadCaribbean campaign.
A bookstagrammer is an Instagram user who reads a lot and shares book reviews and recommendations on Instagram.
Allman, who has read 40-50 Caribbean books for the year so far, and over 1,700 in her life, told Newsday she saw an opportunity to acknowledge Caribbean literature, past and present, as is done in many spaces across the globe.
"June is celebrated as Caribbean-American Heritage Month. In the book space there are months where people have decided on months where we always celebrate something. So March is Middle-Grade March, where people read and discuss middle-grade books, April is African literature, May is Asian Pacific Islander, November is Non-Fiction November.
"So I thought, why isn't there a month where all we read is Caribbean literature?"
June was first recognised as Caribbean-American Heritage Month in 2006 by former US president George W Bush.
Allman said she did her research online and found while Caribbean Heritage Month is celebrated internationally, there was nothing in place to celebrate the literary work from the Caribbean and its diaspora.
Since June 2019, she has seen steady growth in the number of people gathering, first in person, then virtually, since the spread of covid19, to discuss specific literary works by writers from the Caribbean and the diaspora, which includes people of Caribbean descent or stories set in the Caribbean.
She highlighted several well-known writers whose Caribbean connections she said many people do not know. English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker Malcolm Gladwell, who was recognised in 2005 as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people, for example, is of Caribbean heritage. His mother is Jamaican-born psychotherapist and author Joyce Gladwell.
[caption id="attachment_894095" align="alignnone" width="768"] Cindy Allman: "When we read Caribbean books, especially when we are from the Caribbean, we feel like we are reading about people we know, whether friends, family or neighbourss ...opening our eyes to the features of culture on islands." -[/caption]
"So many people have been reading books by people connected to the Caribbean – they might just not know."
After #ReadCaribbean 2019 she said the Bookstagram space has seen exponential growth. Her following on her Instagram page @bookofcinz, where she hosts conversations with authors and other bookstagrammers, now stands at over 23,000 follo
