Books based on Indo-Caribbean life

We profile here some of the books that cover the Indo-Caribbean life. In British times, a lot of Indians migrated to the Caribbean islands and they have created a life there which is its own uniqueness with the blend Indian legacy. The books are available on amazon.com

1. Jahaji: An Anthology of Indo-Caribbean Fiction

Indians have lived in the Caribbean for more than a hundred and sixty years, ever since they took to the ships to work on the sugar plantations. Jahaji (the term meaning "ship-traveler") brings together a representative selection of Indo-Caribbean fiction from three generations of writers from Ismith Khan through Rooplall Monar and Cyril Dabydeen to Marian Budhos and Shani Mootoo. Together, the sixteen writers included here give us an imaginative depiction of the experiences of their people across a span of fifty years – the hopes, aspirations and frustrations of life in colonial Trinidad and Guyana, the post-independence tribulations of third-world citizens and the quest for meaning and identity in the second migration to Canada, the United States and Britain.

2.Indo-Caribbean Indenture: Resistance and Accommodation, 1838-1920

"Indo-Caribbean Indenture" investigates the relatively little-studied but growing field of the experiences of East Indians in the Caribbean from their arrival in 1838 to the end of indentureship in 1920. It places the indenture period into a larger socio-economic framework of imperialism, the post-slavery attempt to solve the labour shortage and the gender-relations which overarched the whole transaction in human bodies. By utilizing a new analytical perspective offered by current writers on the subject of the subaltern, the work departs from the usual historical approach and offers a fresh interpretation. The work will be of particular interest to historians, sociologists and social scientists who focus on the Caribbean, migration, ethnicity, gender studies, peasant resistance, labour history and cultural continuity and change.

3. Bindi: The Multifaceted Lives of Indo-Caribbean Women

In contemporary times, the bindi (red dot between the eyebrows) is decorative as well as religious and is worn by women of any marital status, Hindu or non-Hindu, in India, its diaspora and globally. Rosanne Kanhai uses the bindi to characterize how Into-Caribbean women come into their own in multiple ways. The book is a sequel to Matikor: The Politics of Identity for Indo-Caribbean Women and showcases recent works that reflect a variety of disciplines, styles and topics that include considering Indo-Caribbean women in creative, artistic and performance text, historical and anthropological analyses, intersection with their "others" in the Caribbean and its diaspora, narratives of self, healing and spiritual growth, and roles in religion and cultural activities.