Our congratulations to Tiphanie Yanique, who has received Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her 2015 OCM Bocas Prize longlisted novel, Land of Love and Drowning. The novel is out in paperback next month [see previous post Tiphanie Yanique: My Struggle With an Interracial Relationship].

Description: In the early 1900s, the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule, and an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea. Orphaned by the shipwreck are two sisters and their half-brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them.

Chronicling three generations of an island family from 1916 to the 1970s, Land of Love and Drowning is a novel of love and magic, set against the emergence of Saint Thomas into the modern world. Uniquely imagined, with echoes of Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, and the author’s own Caribbean family history, the story is told in a language and rhythm that evoke an entire world and way of life and love. Following the Bradshaw family through sixty years of fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, love affairs, curses, magical gifts, loyalties, births, deaths, and triumphs, Land of Love and Drowning is a gorgeous, vibrant debut by an exciting, prizewinning young writer.

For purchasing information, see http://www.amazon.com/Land-Love-Drowning-A-Novel/dp/1594488339

Also see https://penusa.org/programs/emerging-voices/rosenthal-family-foundation and  http://www.artsandletters.org/awards2_popup.php?abbrev=rosenthal