Diana McCaulay – författare

From award-winning Jamaican author Diana McCaulay, Gone to Drift is a powerful voice-driven middle grade novel about family set in Jamaica.Lloyd comes from a long line of fishermen. Growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, Lloyd feels most at home with the sea and his grandfather, Maas Conrad, at his side.When his grandfather doesn''t return from a fishing trip, Lloyd fears he has gone to drift. The sea may be in Lloyd''s blood, but as he searches for his grandfather, he discovers a side of the ocean—and the people who use it—that he''s never known before.Told in the alternating voices of Lloyd and Maas Conrad, Gone to Drift is a moving story of family, courage, and the wonders of the oceans we call home.

*Winner of the 2026 RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE and the 2025 CARICON FICTION PRIZE**Shortlisted for the 2025 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE PRIZE*'The past is uprooted, the present holds on by thread, and in the midst of it all is Miss Pauline, strong, conflicted, driven and remarkable.' Marlon James, Booker Prize-winning author of MOON WITCH, SPIDER KING'Delightful and big-hearted . . . It kept me turning pages deep into the night, and left me full of admiration at the end.' Claire Adam, Guardian'One of the Caribbean's finest writers . . . Her novels are building blocks of the current Caribbean canon and will be read for years to come.' Monique Roffey, author of THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCHWhen the stones of her home begin to rattle and call out to her in the quiet of the night, Pauline Sinclair knows she will not live to see her 100th birthday.From educating herself through stolen books to becoming one of the most successful ganja farmers in the area and raising a family, Pauline has lived a life on her own terms in Mason Hall, a rural Jamaican village.Yet these whispering walls promise to topple the foundations of her security and exhume Pauline's many buried secrets, including the mysterious disappearance of the man who came to claim the very land on which she built her home, stone by stone, from the ruins of a plantation.Compelled to make peace before she dies, Pauline decides to leave the only home she has ever known on a final, desperate mission to uncover truths she could never have imagined . . .Lyrical, funny, eerie and profound, A House for Miss Pauline tells a timely and nuanced tale, infused with the patois and natural beauty of Jamaica, which questions who owns the land on which our identities are forged.'History's crimes unfurl in this magical story . . . McCaulay's immaculate, breathtaking writing carries it with poise and conviction.' Lisa Allen-Agostini, author of THE BREAD THE DEVIL KNEAD'Where has Diana McCaulay been all my reading life? . . . A profound and beautiful novel of encounters with the past and atonements in the present.' Julia Alvarez, author of THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES

*Winner of the 2026 RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE and the 2025 CARICON FICTION PRIZE**Shortlisted for the 2025 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE PRIZE*'The past is uprooted, the present holds on by thread, and in the midst of it all is Miss Pauline, strong, conflicted, driven and remarkable.' Marlon James, Booker Prize-winning author of Moon Witch, Spider King'Delightful and big-hearted . . . It kept me turning pages deep into the night, and left me full of admiration at the end.' Guardian'One of the Caribbean's finest writers.' Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black ConchWhen the stones of her home begin to rattle and call out to her in the quiet of the night, Pauline Sinclair knows she will not live to see her 100th birthday.From educating herself through stolen books to becoming one of the most successful ganja farmers in the area and raising a family, Pauline has lived a life on her own terms in Mason Hall, a rural Jamaican village.Yet these whispering walls promise to topple the foundations of her security and exhume Pauline's many buried secrets, including the mysterious disappearance of the man who came to claim the very land on which she built her home, stone by stone, from the ruins of a plantation.Compelled to make peace before she dies, Pauline decides to leave the only home she has ever known on a final, desperate mission to uncover truths she could never have imagined . . .'History's crimes unfurl in this magical story . . . McCaulay's immaculate, breathtaking writing carries it with poise and conviction.' Lisa Allen-Agostini, author of The Bread the Devil Knead'A vivid story of inheritance and belonging, informed by the author's own fascinating family history.' Daily Mail

Gone to Drift is the first Young Adult novel from the Jamaican writer Diana McCaulay, and was placed second in the 2015 Burt Prize for Caribbean Literature.Truth? Respect? Survival? Gone to Drift tells the story of Lloyd, a 12-year-old Jamaican boy, and his search for his beloved grandfather, Maas Conrad, a fisherman who is lost at sea. Lloyd suspects that his grandfather has witnessed an illegal capture of dolphins for the tourist trade and that he has been hurt, perhaps even killed. No one wants to help Lloyd except for an uptown girl who studies dolphins, his best friend Dwight and a mad man called Slowly on a sun-baked beach.Interspersed with Lloyd’s quest on land and sea is a second voice – of Maas Conrad himself, who, unknown to Lloyd is alive but marooned on a rock. In this exciting adventure story Lloyd discovers that the enemies of his grandfather – and of the Caribbean Sea that he loves – are closer to home than he could ever imagine.“This is my first novel for young adults,” says McCaulay, “and as reading meant so much to me as a teenager, I’m hoping Gone to Drift will be read and enjoyed by many Caribbean young people. I wanted to pay tribute to our long tradition of fishermen, and I’m so grateful the Burt Award has made that possible. I’m also thrilled that Gone to Drift is published by Papillote Press, a Caribbean publishing house which I’ve long admired.”Gone to Drift follows on from McCaulay’s two acclaimed novels, Dog-Heart (2010) and Huracan (2012) and is built on her 2012 Regional Commonwealth prize-winning short story, The Dolphin Catchers (Granta Online).

Leigh McCaulay left Jamaica for New York at fifteen following her parents'' divorce. In the wake of her mother''s death fifteen years later, she returns to the island to find her estranged father and the family secrets he holds. Her story is told against the background of two other McCaulays who arrived in Jamaica in the 18th and 19th centuries. As a white Jamaican, Leigh has to think about her own belonging.Back In Jamaica after years away, Leigh McCaulay encounters the familiarity of home along with the strangeness of being white in a black country, and struggles with guilt and confusion over her part in an oppressive history of white slave owners and black slaves.As Leigh begins to make an adult life on the island, she learns of her ancestors – Zachary Macaulay, a Scot sent as a young man to be a bookkeeper on a sugar plantation in 18th century Jamaica who, after witnessing and participating in the brutality of slavery, becomes an abolitionist; and John Macaulay, a missionary who comes to Jamaica in the 19th century to save souls and ends up questioning the foundations of his beliefs.Part historical and part contemporary literary fiction, loosely based on the author''s own family history, Huracan explores how we navigate the inequalities and privileges we are born to and the possibilities for connectedness and social transformation in everyday contemporary life. But it is also the story of an island''s independence; of the people who came (those who prospered and those who were murdered); of crimes and acts of mercy; and the search for place, love and redemption.Diana McCaulay is a Jamaican writer, newspaper columnist and environmental activist. She has written four earlier novels, including Dog-Heart (2010) and Huracan (2012), published by Peepal Tree Press. Both books met with critical acclaim and have broken local publishing records. Her latest novel, Daylight Come, will be published in September 2020.

Through their powerful stories, poems and essays, 18 established and emerging writers from eight Caribbean territories are bringing the climate crisis into sharp focus through the voices of some of those most affected yet least heard — the people and communities of the Caribbean.