Hungry ghosts : a novel /

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Longlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize

"This is a deeply impressive book, and I think an important one. Its intensity, its narrative attack, the fascinations of its era and setting, make it impossible to tear the attention away. Energy and inventiveness distinguish every page." -- Hilary Mantel

From an unforgettable new voice in Caribbean literature, a sweeping story of two families colliding in 1940s Trinidad--and a chilling mystery that shows how interconnected their lives truly are

Trinidad in the 1940s, nearing the end of American occupation and British colonialism. On a hill overlooking Bell Village sits the Changoor farm, where Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in luxury unrecognizable to those who reside in the farm's shadow. Down below is the Barrack, a ramshackle building of wood and tin, divided into rooms occupied by whole families. Among these families are the Saroops--Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna, all three born of the barracks. Theirs are hard lives of backbreaking work, grinding poverty, devotion to faith, and a battle against nature and a social structure designed to keep them where they are.

But when Dalton goes missing and Marlee's safety is compromised, farmhand Hans is lured by the promise of a handsome stipend to move to the farm as a watchman. As the mystery of Dalton's disappearance unfolds, the lives of the wealthy couple and those who live in the barracks below become insidiously entwined, their community changed forever and in shocking ways.

A searing and singular novel of religion, class, family, and historical violence, and rooted in Trinidad's wild pastoral landscape and inspired by oral storytelling traditions, Hungry Ghosts is deeply resonant of its time and place while evoking the roots and ripple effects of generational trauma and linked histories; the lingering resentments, sacrifices, and longings that alter destinies; and the consequences of powerlessness. Lyrically told and rendered with harrowing beauty, Hungry Ghosts is a stunning piece of storytelling and an affecting mystery, from a blazingly talented writer.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

DEBUT Set in 1940s Trinidad, as British and U.S. imperial power start their downslide, this novel from Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner Hosein (his first to be published in the U.S., after several published in the Caribbean, including International Dublin Literary Award long-listed The Repenters) is both a family drama and an acute study of social structure. Wealthy landowner Dalton Changoor has disappeared, and his wife Marlee flirtatiously asks one of the workers, Hans Saroop, to stay at their house at night as protection. That will take Hans away from wife Shweta, son Krishna, and his just-hanging-on Hindu community living in a tumbledown barrack that once served a colonial sugar plantation. Hans is a good man who neither drinks nor gambles, but his marriage has been strained by the death of a daughter, which has left Shweta inconsolable. Meanwhile, teenage Krishna is bullied at the upscale missionary school he attends, turning for respite to cousin Tarak and roustabout twin friends with a shady father; Hans is pulling away from the family just when Krishna needs him the most. As the narrative builds to a corrosively painful ending, Krishna muses that "the man he's known his whole life had changed. Or worse--had always been that way"; the question of whether we can change our lives hovers ominously throughout. VERDICT A highly recommended story of family and class divides that will break readers' hearts.

Publishers Weekly Review

Hosein (The Beast of Kukuyo) sets this thorny literary thriller in the divided Trinidad of the mid-1940s. Eccentric landowner Dalton Changoor's fortune is tied to an unspecified criminal enterprise. His wife, Marlee, doesn't have the details but can pick up the vibe, as "the kind of money that Dalton brought in seemed flecked with blood." When Dalton goes missing, Marlee worries he's been killed, and wonders who did it. Then, after receiving a ransom note, she wonders "what would happen if she didn't care to pay." As the kidnappers try to intimidate Marlee by prowling around the property at night, Marlee asks one of the farmhands, Hans, to guard the house. Hans has spent his life in abject poverty in the barrack alongside his wife, Shweta; their two sons; and five other families. Shweta is desperate to leave the barrack, and Marlee's offer comes with enough money to help them buy their own plot of land. Though a deluge of detail bogs down the pacing, Hosein imbues the proceedings with the swelter of subtropical noir, and entwines his class and colonial commentary with Hans and Marlee's fraught arrangement, as Marlee becomes financially desperate and Hans gets a taste for a better life. Patient readers will find plenty of rewards in this complex tale. Agent: Chris Wellbelove, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (Feb.)

Booklist Review

Being Hindu in 1940s Trinidad is a curse for the Swaroops, who eke out a meager existence on the sugarcane plantation on the outskirts of town. The patriarch, Hansraj (Hans), toils at the lavish Changoor estate, envying people who can buy a plot of land to call their own. Such an opportunity presents itself when Dalton Changoor, the head of the estate, mysteriously vanishes, and his wife, Marlee, offers Hans a handsome sum to become a night watchman and ensure her safety. Dazzled by the lure of money, Hans goes against his wife's wishes and takes the job. On a parallel track runs the story of Hans' son, Krishna, and his friends, as they too discover the perils of playing with fire. Hosein (The Beast of Kukuyo, 2018) sensitively teases apart the tangled web of class and religion and emphasizes the hard choices the powerless routinely live with. "Lemme tell you, life is what you make it. Small room, big house. Life could be good and bad in both," says an older woman in the plantation barracks. As the Swaroops discover, the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps theory does not always work for those flailing at the edges of society.

Kirkus Book Review

A vibrant portrait of Trinidad in the 1940s traces various members of a multiracial community grappling with poverty, emotional connection, and "hereditary pain." Starting with the disappearance of secretive landowner Dalton Changoor, the blood-brother swearing of four local lads, and a drowned dog, Hosein--a celebrated author from Trinidad and Tobago--plunges readers into the turbulent stream of Bell Village life on a not-always-paradisiacal-seeming Caribbean island. His cast of characters is wide, forefronted by Hansraj "Hans" Saroop, one of Changoor's laborers, and his family--wife Shweta, son Krishna. Their home, on an old sugar cane estate, is the barrack, a rat-infested, leaking, multifamily dwelling with a shared latrine, in contrast with the large Changoor home, a manor now occupied solely by the landowner's wife, Marlee, left in the dark about her husband's whereabouts or return plans. Faced with ransom notes and a second dog's death, Marlee pays Hans to be her night watchman, arousing suspicions in both Shweta and Krishna. Meanwhile, secondary characters--other barrack dwellers, bullying teenagers, unreliable policemen, and more--impact events and shade in the "anecdotal tapestry." Destructive histories, not just the colonial past, but also the American occupation during World War II, impinge on the present, as do racism and complex, often violent connections. There are gods--Hans and his family are Hindu; his colleague Robinson is Christian; Rookmin, the wise woman of the barrack, adheres to the old beliefs--and devils who beat their wives and worse. Sex, betrayal, feuds, nightmare pregnancies, and more dead dogs swirl through the narrative, underpinned by philosophies of survival among all classes. Hosein evokes all this in rich, visceral language dotted with obscure terms: flabellate, noctilucae, rufescent. His story, often brutal, ultimately tragic, is nevertheless lit by a wide embrace reaching beyond place and people to the bedrock. Immersive, persuasive: an elemental "portal to the Caribbean" delivered in a distinctive voice. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Kevin Jared Hosein is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago. He wrote and illustrated his debut book in 2013, Littletown Secrets. It was named the best children's book of 2013 by the Trinidad Guardian. His other awards include being the regional winner of the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for The King of Settlement 4, and winner of 2018 Commonwealth Writers' Short Story Prize for Passages. He is the author of the poem, The Wait is So, So Long. It was awarded the Gold Key at the New York-based Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

(Bowker Author Biography)