"Expect to be intrigued. Expect to be entertained. But don't expect to understand Trinidad."

So say Trinidad Noir editors Lisa Allen-Agostini, and Jeanne Mason of their ground-breaking collection of stories, which "trail the country's criminals, her prostitutes, her officious bureaucrats, her police, her ordinary citizens."

More from the Introduction to Trinidad Noir:

Paradoxes in Paradise

People think they know the Caribbean, the white-sandy-beaches-rum-and-Coca-Cola-smiling-natives-waving-palms Caribbean--you know the one.  And sure, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has sun, sea, beaches, the whole tourist schtick.  But this southernmost country in the Caribbean archipelago is filled with paradoxes.  She isn't always the idyllic tropical dream.  Far from it.  Sometimes she's a nightmare.

. . . .

It's ironic that this volume is the first noir collection to come out of this country because, in a sense, Trinidad was founded on crime.  Christopher Columbus's arrival in 1498 was the start of a criminal enterprise of epic proportions: it began with the theft of the island from its indigenous Carib people, then their genocide, followed by African slavery and the importation of indentured labor to man the obscenely lucrative cocoa, sugar, and coffee plantations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Today, Trinidad's political climate of excess and corruption is buoyed by an economy bloated with oil and natural gas monies and by an element of society afloat in drugs and guns.  There's fodder enough here for ten volumes of Trinidad Noir.

. . . .

This collection includes stories by some of today's more acclaimed Caribbean writers, and for such a small country, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has an impressive literary legacy . . . Although Trinidad has big-city aspirations in her two main urban areas of Port-of-Spain, the capital, and San Fernando, there is still plenty of country life in her cane-farming central plains, her southern swamps, and her coastal fishing villages. Set in the various parts of the country, these stories reflect the island in all her contradictions.  As you turn the pages, you will experience a nation like no other.  See for yourself, but bear in mind: there's nothing a Trini won't do for you, and there's nothing a Trini won't do to you.

Lisa Allen-Agostini & Jeanne Mason (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad -- May 2008)

[More on Trinidad Noir and on how you can win a copy of the collection on Friday.]