Welcome!

  “What begins as one woman’s symphony and loss soon unravels stone by stone, secret by secret until we’re left with nothing less than the brutal, turbulent, wild, and haunted history of Jamaica itself. Miss Pauline is the dazzling heroine of our times, a cypher for uncovering the secrets her world keeps hidden even as she hides her own.”  Marlon James, Booker-prize winning author, MOON WITCH, SPIDER KING. 

  “This is a profound and beautiful novel, rich with encounters with the past and atonements in the present.” Julia Alvarez, best selling author of THE CEMETARY OF UNTOLD STORIES. 

  “McCaulay possesses a Steinbeck-like social awareness . . . A HOUSE FOR MISS PAULINE is a beautiful, poetic novel that makes me want to explore McCaulay’s entire back catalogue.” Julia Kelly, Irish Times.  

“A vivid story of inheritance and belonging, informed by the author’s own fascinating family history.” Hephziba Anderson, Daily Mail. 

“Delightful and big-hearted ... kept me turning pages deep into the night." Claire Adam, Guardian.   

 Published February 2025 by Dialogue Books (UK) and Algonquin Books (USA) 

  “  

“Sadly, nothing in this powerful glimpse of a possible future strains credulity; we could be building precisely this planet. Its readers, I hope, will be moved to take action right now, while we still have time to avert some of the damage. And I hope they will be moved, too, by the gritty evocation of unity across difference that allows effective resistance.” Bill McKibben, author of HERE COMES THE SUN. 

  “  

"Like the best science fiction, DAYLIGHT COME isn't just fiction but a warning of a very possible future. Kei Miller, author of THINGS I HAVE WITHHELD. 

  “This driving narrative explores issues of climate change from a non-European perspective. An Important book. Ingrid Persaud, author of THE LOST LOVE SONGS OF BOYSIE SINGH.  

Published November 2020 by Peepal Tree Press, UK  

Have a question or comment? Get in touch with us using the contact form and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

GONE TO DRIFT is a Jamaican coming-of-age story; realistic, often funny and deeply touching."  Pamela Morcedai, author of DE BOOK OF JOSPEPH.  

Published in 2014 by Papillote Press (Dominica and UK)

Published in 2016 by Harper Collins (USA)  

Have a question or comment? Get in touch with us using the contact form and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

“A sharp-eyed, salty-sweet mix of family history and historical fiction from Jamaica: Diana McCaulay has captured the bright tropic warmth, the violence and beauty of her birthplace like a born storyteller. Written in a vigorous, patois-inflected prose, HURACAN scissors intriguingly backwards and forwards in time from the 1980s to the slave-driving 18th century. Over it all, hovers the figure of Scottish abolitionist Zachary Macaulay, who came to the cane cutting colony as a young man. Along the way, unforgettably, themes of homecoming, rootlessness and belonging are explored. All life is written in these haunting pages.” Ian Thomson, author of THE DEAD YARD: Tales of Modern Jamaica. 

"Diana McCaulay has done her forebears proud, rendering their stories in clear and evocative prose that is imbued with historical fact and imagined detail. She has written a big book, a novel of consequence that many different kinds of readers will enjoy and benefit from… this novel is a wonderful read and a welcome addition to every Caribbeanist library.” Mary Hanna, Jamaica Observer. 

“No novel I’ve recently encountered wrestles so earnestly — and so movingly — with the ethical dimensions of what Alfred López calls “bourgeois imperial whiteness” than Huracan. Despite this evident ambition, however, McCaulay’s measured voice seldom slips into diatribe. Like so many of us, she just wants to discover, intimately, the true nature of her ancestry — a task made more difficult by the notorious fissures and absences which govern the Caribbean archive. Though she takes her partial knowledge for granted, one can feel McCaulay sigh a breath of relief at discovering her worst fears are unfounded: her ancestors were not slaveowners. If not such villains, then, her novel asks, who were her ancestors, really, fundamentally?” Stephen Narain, Los Angles Review of Books.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/redemption-songs/    

“Diana McCaulay’s HURACAN is a deceptive novel, a hauntology. This intergenerational story is so deftly woven and fluidly told that you quite forget the weight of the history underlying it. Shifting between narratives set roughly a hundred years apart, the novel opens in 1986 with the return of its protagonist from foreign shores to the land of her birth after an absence of fifteen years.
 

“As Leigh McCaulay, the contemporary protagonist of HURACAN, soon discovers, ‘bad things could happen even though the fences ran around the base of a hill and your house was right on top’ . As she tries to slip back into the Jamaica she left as a fifteen-year-old, Leigh is confronted at almost every turn by her foreignness, born not merely from having been away so long but also because of her status as a minority: ‘White Gal!’ shouts a bystander as she’s driven home from the airport. And thereupon hangs this tale.” Annie Paul, University of the West Indies, Mona. 

Published October 2012 by Peepal Tree Press, (UK)   

Have a question or comment? Get in touch with us using the contact form and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

  “McCaulay showcases her formidable writing skills in this ambitious, heart-breaking work to excellent effect…the mirror McCaulay relentlessly holds up doesn’t let anyone off the hook, least of all those who read this book without flinching.” Annie Paul, Editor-in-Chief, PREE.

“DOG-HEART is a well-written and compelling work of fiction with a strong moral purpose.” Ian Thomson, Times Literary Supplement.

“My admiration for Diana McCaulay’s debut novel DOG-HEART is unbounded… this book should be read by every Jamaica, especially by those who are afraid to venture below Cross Roads.” Ralph Thompson, Bookends, Jamaica Observer.

“This powerful contemporary novel is so relevant for our times, recent tragic events we have lived through have their seeds in this book.” Jamaica Observer.

“McCaulay’s real achievement in this her first novel is that she helps us see there are no easy answers to questions of class structures and class relations, to poverty and violence... this is a fine first novel.”  Lorna Down, Jamaica Journal.
 

“Masterfully told, when you read DOG-HEART you will feel Jamaica's heart beating ... and breaking.” Esther Figueroa, independent film maker. 

Published March 2010 by Peepal Tree Press, (UK)   

Have a question or comment? Get in touch with us using the contact form and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.