Hurricane Watch: New and Collected Poems (Carcanet Press), a new volume by Jamaican Poet Laureate Olive Senior, brings together the contents of her four previous books of poems with new work, including a sequence written during and about the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether Senior writes of Caribbean landscapes, flora and fauna, domestic observations, or historical meditations, questions of justice and community are never far from her concerns.

One Day, One Day, Congotay (Peepal Tree Press), the long-awaited third novel by Merle Hodge, is set in the pre-Independence period in Cayeri, a fictional Caribbean island inspired by Trinidad. It follows the life, aspirations, and struggles of Gwynneth Cuffie, a schoolteacher and community leader, navigating her way through class and ethnic tensions towards “another vision of family that has little to do with biology, and everything to do with love.”

A Scream in the Shadows (Papillote Press), a new crime novel by St. Lucian writer Mac Donald Dixon, uses the conventions of the detective novel to explore questions of contemporary violence and corruption in a small Caribbean island. After a young girl is murdered in a rural village, her stepfather is arrested for the crime and held without trial — until his son joins the police force in an attempt to clear his name.

Velorio (HarperVia), the debut novel by Xavier Navarro Aquino, is set in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Camila, mourning the death of her sister, carries her body as she searches for a utopian community founded by the cult leader Urayoán. Memoria promises peace and justice, but when troubled human emotions and motives flare up, its members must confront their ideas about power, loyalty, and the meaning of home.

Haitian Revolutionary Fictions: An Anthology (University of Virginia Press), edited by Marlene L Daut, Grégory Pierrot, and Marion C. Rohrleitner, is a groundbreaking collection of 18th- and 19th-century fiction, poetry, and drama inspired by the Haitian Revolution. Two hundred excerpts, from texts originally written in multiple languages, show how generations of writers tackled the themes and characters of one of the defining events of modern history. Celebrated authors like Alexandre Dumas and William Wordsworth mingle with less famous contemporaries from Europe, North and South America, and Haiti itself.