Books from the Caribbean
Papillote Press is a small, independent publishing house specialising in books about Dominica and the wider Caribbean.
“Papillote Press is committed to telling our stories in books that are made to be treasured.” Marina Salandy-Brown, founder and director of the Bocas Lit Fest
Updates
Activity Sheets for Good Night My Sweet Island
Activity Sheets - Exclusive bumper pack of 16 activities, through the Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Program 2024 for Good Night My Sweet Island.
Looking for Cazabon By Lawrence Scott
Lawrence Scott’s Looking for Cazabon, reflects on the watercolours and the sites of the 19th-century Trinidadian artist Michel Jean Cazabon.
Summer Reading Challenge
We’re delighted that Good Night My Sweet Island, our new children’s picture book by Petrea Honychurch Seaman and illustrated by Susanne Heitz has been chosen by the UK’s Reading Agency as one of only 25 picture books for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge.
Remembering Clayton Shillingford
Dr Clayton Shillingford, who sadly died last month, was one of 22 Dominican returnees who featured in Home Again: Stories of Migration and Return.
First Visit – Meeting Dominica and Phyllis Shand Allfrey
Forty years ago I first visited Dominica to interview writer and politician Phyllis Shand Allfrey (and Prime Minister Eugenia Charles) for a UK newspaper.
Elma Napier Remembered
It is 50 years this month since the death of Elma Napier, writer, pioneering environmentalist, and the first woman to sit in a West Indian House of Assembly.
And Still They Stand
Blog Post about two reviews of Papillote Press’ Still Standing: the Ti Kais of Dominica by Adom Philogene Heron, with photographs by Marica Honychurch.
My Ti Kai, My Home
Olive Bell remembers life in a ti kai as a child and how that experience inspired her to become an architect. She collaborated on the making of 'Still Standing" The ti kai of Dominica.
Making Connections
Three women writers of Dominica - Jean Rhys, subject of much acclaimed biography by Miranda Seymour, Phyllis Shand Allfrey, and Elma Napier.
En Papillote reading by Mac Donald Dixon
Papillote Press continues its En Papillote series with a reading by Mac Donald Dixon, author of the just published A Scream in the Shadows.
featured
Resistance, Refuge, Revival
The Indigenous Kalinagos of Dominica
Lennox Honychurch
ISBN: 9781739130329
Original paperback
Price: £15.99
Publication: September 2024
ebook
Dominica is the only place in the Caribbean where the Kalinagos – the indigenous people of the region – were able to secure a portion of their own land after everywhere else had been taken from them. This is their remarkable story. Written by a Dominican whose knowledge of the Kalinagos is unsurpassed, it sheds new light on how they shifted identities – from the early years of resistance to European colonisation, through tactical withdrawal to a revival of traditions and respect in the 21st century.
“I am honoured as a Kalinago leader to be part of this wonderful work as it relates to the history of our people.” Irvince Auguiste, former Kalinago Chief.
Books from the Caribbean
Papillote Press is a small, independent publishing house specialising in books about Dominica and the wider Caribbean.
“Papillote Press is committed to telling our stories in books that are made to be treasured.” Marina Salandy-Brown, founder and director of the Bocas Lit Fest
featured
Resistance, Refuge, Revival
The Indigenous Kalinagos of Dominica
ISBN: 9781739130329
Original paperback
Price: £15.99
Publication: September 2024
ebook
Dominica is the only place in the Caribbean where the Kalinagos – the indigenous people of the region – were able to secure a portion of their own land after everywhere else had been taken from them. This is their remarkable story. Written by a Dominican whose knowledge of the Kalinagos is unsurpassed, it sheds new light on how they shifted identities – from the early years of resistance to European colonisation, through tactical withdrawal to a revival of traditions and respect in the 21st century.
“I am honoured as a Kalinago leader to be part of this wonderful work as it relates to the history of our people.” Irvince Auguiste, former Kalinago Chief.
Updates
Activity Sheets for Good Night My Sweet Island
Activity Sheets - Exclusive bumper pack of 16 activities, through the Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Program 2024 for Good Night My Sweet Island.
Looking for Cazabon By Lawrence Scott
Lawrence Scott’s Looking for Cazabon, reflects on the watercolours and the sites of the 19th-century Trinidadian artist Michel Jean Cazabon.
Summer Reading Challenge
We’re delighted that Good Night My Sweet Island, our new children’s picture book by Petrea Honychurch Seaman and illustrated by Susanne Heitz has been chosen by the UK’s Reading Agency as one of only 25 picture books for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge.
Remembering Clayton Shillingford
Dr Clayton Shillingford, who sadly died last month, was one of 22 Dominican returnees who featured in Home Again: Stories of Migration and Return.
First Visit – Meeting Dominica and Phyllis Shand Allfrey
Forty years ago I first visited Dominica to interview writer and politician Phyllis Shand Allfrey (and Prime Minister Eugenia Charles) for a UK newspaper.
Elma Napier Remembered
It is 50 years this month since the death of Elma Napier, writer, pioneering environmentalist, and the first woman to sit in a West Indian House of Assembly.
And Still They Stand
Blog Post about two reviews of Papillote Press’ Still Standing: the Ti Kais of Dominica by Adom Philogene Heron, with photographs by Marica Honychurch.
My Ti Kai, My Home
Olive Bell remembers life in a ti kai as a child and how that experience inspired her to become an architect. She collaborated on the making of 'Still Standing" The ti kai of Dominica.
Making Connections
Three women writers of Dominica - Jean Rhys, subject of much acclaimed biography by Miranda Seymour, Phyllis Shand Allfrey, and Elma Napier.
En Papillote reading by Mac Donald Dixon
Papillote Press continues its En Papillote series with a reading by Mac Donald Dixon, author of the just published A Scream in the Shadows.
RECOMMENDED
Looking for Cazabon
By Lawrence Scott
ISBN: 978173930367
2024, Paperback, £11.99
Lawrence Scott returns in his reflections to the watercolours and the sites of the 19th-century Trinidadian artist Michel Jean Cazabon, the subject of his novel, Light Falling on Bamboo. Beautifully crafted, these highly regarded poems, mostly sonnets, celebrate the landscape of Trinidad and revisit loves and friendships while evoking both the historical and contemporary violence of its society.
Good Night My Sweet Island
By Petrea Honychurch Seaman
Illustrated by Susanne Heitz
ISBN: 9781838041595
2023, Paperback, £7.99
Saying good night “to all things we love”: in a homage to a magical Caribbean island, Good Night Sweet Island takes the reader through a poetic and visually stimulating journey. Each verse celebrates aspects of tropical island life: birds and animals, dance and music, fruit and food, rivers and forests, sea and beach. As the sun goes down, a child says a dreamy good night to all the rich experiences of the day.
Still Standing
The Ti Kais of Dominica
By Adom Philogene Heron
Photographs by Marica Honychurch
ISBN: 9781838041588
2022, Paperback, £21.50
“A truly superb introduction to a traditional, yet evolving, element of Caribbean vernacular architecture and a fine example of creolization in material culture.” New West Indian Guide 98, forthcoming in “Bookshelf 2023”, spring 2024
This beautifully illustrated book is a celebration of the vanishing vernacular architecture of Dominica. These small wooden homes, ingeniously crafted and carefully adapted to their environment, have withstood hurricanes and earthquakes since their emergence in the post-emancipation period. While many modern, concrete homes have been destroyed, they are “still standing’. Even so, they are under threat from the forces of ‘modernity’ and ‘development’.
Black Man Listen
The Life of JR Ralph Casimir
ISBN: 9781838041526
2022, Paperback, £8.99
This is the first biography of the pioneering life of JR Ralph Casimir (1898-1986), a Pan- Africanist and poet from Dominica. Calling himself a “New Negro”, for more than half a century he confronted not just colonial rule, but his island’s elites.
featured contributors
Lennox Honychurch
Lennox Honychurch is a Dominican historian and anthropologist. He has published numerous academic papers and books on the history of Dominica and the Caribbean region. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Oxford on the material culture of the Kalinago people of Dominica.
Lawrence Scott
Lawrence Scott is an award-winning Caribbean novelist and short-story writer from Trinidad & Tobago. His first novel Witchbroom (1992, and reissued by Papillote Press in 2017) was a BBC Book at Bedtime, while his second novel, Aelred’s Sin, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book for Canada and the Caribbean in 1999.
Petrea Honychurch Seaman
Petrea Honychurch Seaman was born and grew up on the Caribbean island of Dominica. She began to write children’s fiction inspired by her two young daughters, both great readers and explorers of this lush and mountainous island.
Susan Heitz
Susanne Heitz was born in Germany but has spent much of her life in the Caribbean. Trained at the Hochschule for Fine Art and Design in Hannover, Germany, her love of nature and vibrant colours are key elements in her work.
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Papillote Press
Papillote Press publishes books from Dominica and the wider Caribbean. It's small but lovingly formed and is keen to engage its readers - present and future - into the possibilities for new Papillote Press projects.
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it, or it's been deleted.