We meet four boys in 1940s Trinidad as they make a blood pact to look out for one another. What follows is an epic tale of family, love, social inequality, status, religion, injustice, and violence. The lives of these boys and their families are heavily influenced by their poverty and low status. Hans, the father of one of the boys, has the opportunity to better his circumstances when the rich local farmer, Dalton Changoor, goes missing. Dalton’s young and beautiful wife Marlee wants Hans to act as guard for her following a series of threats, leading Hans down a path which has the potential to change the lives of his family forever.

The story is richly woven, and the language is lyrical and flows beautifully. The lives of these families are difficult and often desperately unfair, but the author builds tension slowly across the book and lets the characters develop in a way that rings very true.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Layered, multigenerational portrait that grips from first page to the last, Hosein vividly captures Trinadad as a place haunted by its own history as much by that of the otherworldly nodded to throughout. Recommended.

This book is set to become of the big books of the year, and quite rightly so. It is a deep and moving story of love, loss, prejudice, domestic violence, superstition, poverty and wealth, and yet the author manages to weave these disparate and difficult themes into a satisfying, if rather dark whole. Set in 1940’s Trinidad, it focuses on the poor Hindus of the ‘barrack’ and the wealthy Christian landowners nearby. The two cultures come into increasing conflict with the disappearance of wealthy Dalton Changoor, and the need for the wife he left behind to be protected - a job that falls inevitably to the men of the barrack. The language of the writing is rich and unusual at times, with words of Hindi and Creole woven seamlessly into the narrative - these are almost always easy to decipher within their context, and give the writing style a depth rarely achieved by an author only using English language. The settings and characters are brought clearly to life and the story, whilst dark, is gripping and compelling. A powerful example of very fine literary fiction.

A story of survival. Five families living in abject poverty on an old sugar plantation manage to explore and understand the beauty of their home in Trinidad that few of us are aware whilst forming relationships that enrich both themselves and the community in which they live. Three dimensional characters, striving to make a success of life yet able to retain awareness of their birthplace delivers an unusual and eye opening example of how little we know of the world we live in . Moreover the obstacles and trials faced by some cultures not only to survive but succeed and sustain fellowship and friendship. Many thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Firstly I have to admit to having put this book off for a while. I avoided reading it just cos there was a cast list at the beginning. I thought that meant that I would struggle with who's who... Something I tend to do when introduced to a large cast all at once. In fact, I even screen shot it and printed it out so I could refer to it. Ready to make additions as I read. Funnily enough it stayed in my bag all the way through reading. I never referred to it once. So... don't let that put you off this book. Yes it is very character driven but said characters are all very well described, distinct, and all easy to get to know as the book progresses.
Wow... this was a bit of an eye opener. Mostly to the way of life that some families have to endure. Life in the Barrack is not fun. But they just get on with it. Yes they have aspirations, but there is such a level of camaraderie and everyone mucking in to help everyone else that they all seem content and ticking along in the mean time. I mean, you can dream, but mostly dreams are all it is...
We meet the Saroops, who live in the Barrack - Hans, Shweta and their son Krishna. Hans works at the big house for the Changoors - Dalton and Marlee. And when we first enter the story, on a very rainy night, Dalton has gone missing and Marlee starts to get worrying demands for money. She persuades Hans to "move in" to help protect her. With the promise of a good wage which could mean Hans and family can escape the Barrack, he is torn... Meanwhile Krishna has his own fights and struggles, mostly with other children outwith the Barrack, from his school in Bell village. The absence of his father doesn't really help matters...
This was a difficult book for me and, as already mentioned, not because of the cast of characters. It's a powerful book and pulls no punches when describing life in the Barrack. There are a lot of "isms" to be found herein. To do with Race, Religion, Class and Traditions. We also have the whole gamut of emotions, including some very powerful. It's also quite violent in places which reflects how powerful said emotions can be. I don't do trigger warnings but, if I did, I would include a whole host of them here.
It's also incredibly sad in places. I did have to take five a few times to stand away from it. Too much to think about, Some processing required before carrying on. It's also quite complex as it does flit about in time a bit but always easy to follow.
It's hard to say I enjoyed reading this book due to the subjects contained herein. What I can say is that I engaged with it, connected to the characters, cared about them. Laughed with them, cried with them and at what happens to them. And it's a book whose topics and layers will stay with me a while yet.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Hungry Ghosts featured on a lot of anticipated books of 2023 lists so I was absolutely thrilled to get an ARC and absolutely I can see the excitement as this spell binding debut novel just screams Booker Longlist to me.

The book is set in 1940s Trinidad and Tobago when the US military were in situ and really focuses the discrimination in this multicultural society ranging from racism, religious intolerance and classism.

The book opens with four young boys making a blood pact to be brothers for life – little do they know what implications this will have. They are living in the Barrack an impoverished community in which a number of families live, including Hans, his wife Shweta and their son, Krishna one of the four boys. Shwela dreams of a better life and when the local landowner Dalton goes missing and his beautiful wife Marlee is looking for someone to be a guard as she is being threatened Hans takes the job as an opportunity to move ahead in life with predictably disastrous consequences.

This is such a rich novel both in terms of the vivid writing with lush descriptions of the rich flora and fauna of the island. Full of well-drawn characters and beautifully descriptive language. The novel is so atmospheric that you can almost imagine yourself in the barracks. It’s not an easy read – some parts are incredibly bleak but it was compelling and like I said at the start that this is my early Booker 2023 Longlist prediction.

Since I read Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s When We Were Birds last year – also set in Trinidad – I’ve been fascinated by this island and its different communities, including many people who are the descendants of indentured workers. Here we are introduced to the people living in an old sugarcane estate barrack, a place that hardly seems habitable but which is home to five families. In this ‘place of lesser lives’, there’s no privacy, barely even shelter from the elements. But there is a mini-distillation of all of life – youngsters with dreams, families, and death.
The language is a rich dialect but I didn’t often feel the need to look up a word as much of the time the meaning was clear, in particular when it related to food or the abundant flora and fauna that is such a part of the book’s landscape. This is the language of someone deeply connected to the earth and plants and animals, as the author puts it, ‘the sociocultural landscape and ecology of this novel’. I really enjoyed Hungry Ghosts but suspect I’ve only scratched the surface of what one could get out of it so I’m really looking forward to hearing Kevin Jared Hosein talking about it on Fane on 26 February.

From the reviews I knew this was going to be a tough read, but it was VERY dark. Set in 1940s #trinidad, much of the story takes place in the ‘barrack‘; the remnants of slave housing, where the incredibly poor eke out their ‘lesser lives‘. Another storyline features the disappearance of a local reclusive landowner, but it‘s all inter-connected.

There‘s no light anywhere in this novel, hence why it‘s touted as a Booker nominee. It‘s one of those books that you hesitate to recommend because it‘s so tough but, weirdly, I grew to appreciate it. TW for animal abuse.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

One of the titles I was really looking forward to this year by this Caribbean novelist and poet described by the BBC news website as “one of the most talked about forthcoming books in literary circles”. It is admittedly impressive.
Set in 1940s Trinidad, yet the date feels largely irrelevant as there is a sense of timelessness which permeates the characters’ lives. There are two main locations, one a large house lived in by Dalton and Marlee Changoor. His wealth has come from unknown, suspicious means and the locals doubt the background of his younger wife. The second setting is the barrack, an impoverished courtyard around which a number of families live, including Hans, his wife Shweta and their son, Krishna. Hans is within both locations as he works in the Changoor grounds. His aim is to escape the barrack and find land in the nearby Bell village but there are very few ways to escape the barrack.
The author creates a range of vividly drawn characters from their present existence and back stories. This is a superb storyteller at work. They are all very much products of their environment, an environment which is richly depicted with much description. It’s been a long time since I have had to look up so many words, a number related to descriptions of flora and fauna and the surroundings- many used potentially for their sound as much as meaning, really bringing home that this is the work of a poet.
When Dalton Changoor goes missing the lives of the older characters are transformed. I found the early sections of the book outstanding. The younger generation’s lives are linked with a casual violence and as the novel continued the ripeness of the words and the environment soured, becoming over-ripe and I found myself getting queasy. There was still much that impressed yet I found the subject matter led to passages that were difficult to read. They will stay my mind but not for reasons I’d like. There’s a slight over-egging of the horrors of life which dominated in the latter sections where I longed for some balance from the nightmarish world-view. At one point some of the characters consume hallucinogenic mushrooms and it is as if this psychedelic paranoia pervades the novel from this point on.
Characterisation and story-telling great, it just became a little too much. There is no doubt that Kevin Jared Hosein has written a haunting, impactful tale which has the feel of a modern classic whilst rooted in a historic, oral tradition.
Hungry Ghosts will be published in the UK by Bloomsbury on 16th February 2023. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

This novel is set in beautiful but bleak 1940s Trinidad. Dalton and Marlee Changor are the wealthy owners of a sugarcane farm. When Dalton goes missing and Marlee is threatened, she hires one of the poor workers, Hans, to serve a a guard. Th novel is somewhat of a mystery, but more importantly a character study and an exploration of weighty issues of violence, racism, sexism, classism, and religious intolerance. I felt like I was reading something IMPORTANT and LITERARY, and at times I felt like the author tried a little too hard with excessively difficult word use. This kept it from being a five star read for me.

Beautifully written book, but I found the flashbacks quite distracting.
I also didn't particularly enjoy the fragments about the son and the other children/kids, and found myself skipping at times. These were much more graphic (particularly violence and violence towards animals) and I would have preferred it if the story had focused more on the adults and their relationships. However I still think it's a book worth reading.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

A deftly written novel with evocative, lyrical prose, vivid characterisation and a heartbreaking plot.

This book takes you on a journey to Trinidad with a beautiful, multisensory backdrop of the nature and culture of the island. We then zoom in to small pockets of the Life of the people of Trinidad and fall deeply into the struggles contained within the profound poverty they face.

This book takes on huge themes of masculinity, grief, forgiveness, domestic violence, class and social mobility. Yet, they are all expertly handled by Hossein and provide much food for thought. I would say that the richness of this novel was almost a little too much at times, giving me a slight sense of reader indigestion as I worked at trying to take everything in.

But overall this was a fabulous read and was incredibly moving. It will definitely stay with me.

This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

This is a lyrical intergenerational tale of the haves and have-nots, set against the backdrop of 1940s Trinidad.

The prose is both straightforward and verbose - and the majority of it is absolutely beautifully written. The Hindi and Creole vocabulary are left untranslated... which can be a little distracting, but you can mostly work it out from the context.

The characters are complex and flawed - and while some of them are wholly unlikeable, others completely tug at your heartstrings. The plot unfolds unpredictably and you are left gripped until the last page. I will absolutely be looking out for more work from this author.

As other reviewers have noted - this is prime Booker prize material.

CW: classism, violence, violence against animals & animal death, sexual assault, bullying

The voice doesn't work for me - it's quite wordy and doesn't flow. The blood brother trope also doesn't appeal. DNF

In Hungry Ghosts, Kevin Jared Hosein immerses us in 1940s Trinidad and crafts a tense, if grim, narrative exploring the interweaving lives of several families.

Much of the story revolves around the disappearance of wealthy landowner Dalton Changoor, leaving his wife Marlee to rely on farmhand Hans Saroop to keep her and their home safe. Hans lives with his wife Shweta and his teenage son Krishna in one room in a ramshackle barrack which is shared with several other families. They are desperately saving for a new home in Bell Village and Hans is therefore tempted by the large financial reward Marlee offers to spend the nights at the farm as a watchman, despite Shweta's misgivings.

There is a lot more going on than this. One important strand is Shweta's continuing grief for their baby daughter who died many years previously. Another is the blood pact which Krishna and his cousin Tarak form with two older twin boys following Krishna's suspension from the village school where, as a Hindu, he faced regular bullying from richer Christian boys. We also follow the lives and struggles of the other families who live with the Saroops in the barrack.

This is a rich and multilayered novel which explores many themes including poverty, inequality, religion, grief, desire and violence. The writing is vivid and evocative, and the plot is carefully constructed, with a number of revelations about different characters' past dropped into the narrative at the start of different sections. Kevin Jared Hosein offers little respite from the bleakness of life in this community as one bad event generally leads for several more, and the novel gives us little hope that the desire of many parents to create a better life for their children can ever be satisfied. This therefore isn't an easy read, but I did find it compelling. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

Hungry Ghosts
by Kevin Jared Hosein

I have read so little Caribbean literature and know so little about Trinidad and Tobago so I was eagerly anticipating this book. The opening does not disappoint with it's feverdream style blood pact between four young boys, evoking a "Lord of the Flies" setting.

The writing style is intriguing at first, lyrical Creole English, heavily influenced by Hindu tradition and culture, however this quickly becomes verbose and perhaps a bit indulgent. It lacks flow and there are many passages that in retrospect feel unnecessary. I found that this made it difficult to remain engaged with the story.

I expected to be transported to Trinidad, and while Hosein exhaustively lists the many plants and species native to that area, I never found an image of the place. What is overwhelming is the sense of despair and futility of the characters, divided into the haves, the have-littles and the have-nots.

Characterisation is not strong, rather for each character there is a glimpse into a past event which serves to illustrate their relationships and grievances with the other main players. It is these relationships which form the tone and narrative. Tension; resentment, jealousy, retribution, revenge, sets the tone, with brutality against women, children and animals abounding and this is not a place of contrasts, no joy, no humour, very little humanity. I felt for Schweta, Hans' wife and the mother of Krishna. I was grateful for the inclusion of the "Main Players" page and consulted that many times in the first half of the book.

The actual story is delicate and unfortunately somewhat lost behind the verbal gymnastics, but with themes of class and religion, family and infidelity, murder and suicide, there is plenty to discuss. I would recommend a crib sheet be included in the finished version because of the abundance of foreign words and phrases, which can be fun to look up at first, but eventually becomes annoying.

Publication date: 16th February 2023
Thanks to #netgalley and #bloomsburypublishing for the egalley

I did struggle a little to engage with this book. It did seem to jump around so much that I kept losing track of who it was talking about and what the timeframe was. The changes were to describe the background to the characters and I'm not sure how else it could have been done but it still lost me.

The story in itself is really quite depressing whereby one unhappy event leads to a more unhappy one. It all begins with the disappearance of the local "bigwig" Dalton Changoor. His wife, Marlene, is quite content not to see him return but when she starts being harassed she invents a more pressing reason for her handyman, Hansraj, to stay at her home. Once there the two begin an affair. This affects Hans' whole family and one disaster leads to another.

I can't say I enjoyed the book because it gives a view of the lives of people who are simply too downtrodden by their circumstances to drag themselves out of the mire. There are so many strikes against them from birth that unless a miracle occurs they will remain in poverty.

I have to say that throughout I was willing something good to come from something bad but that might be simply because I am an optimist. Either way the triggering event of Changoor's disappearance is the catalyst for all the other problems and tragedies that occur.

This is not an easy read dealing, as it does, with racism, sexual and physical abuse, murder, blackmail and abuse of animals. Its an interesting read once you have worked out who is who though so I would recommend it.

This was a strong start to me. Four young boys make a blood pact and the novel becomes a tale of the haves and the have nots in Trinidad. As it went on I found the language overly complex. Inlaces it was lyrical, in other dense with words I had to look up.

Thanks to Netgallery for the ARC

This is a powerful novel set in Trinidad. It is very well crafted. Raw in terms of emotions as it is so easy to identify with each of the characters.It took a little while to get into but then it was impossible to put down Each character came alive and tore at your heartstrings. The life described was so tough and so unfair. The prose was beautiful and I shall certainly look forward to reading more from this author

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a haunting, atmospheric and totally mesmerising read. I was transported into the time and the space depicted in the novel., becoming fully invested in the daily lives of these characters. So rich with detail, but not bogged down by it. Story telling at its finest. I will certainly be checking out more of Hosein work