The new volume Virgin Islands Noir (Akashic Books, 2026) edited by Tiphanie Yanique and Richard Georges will be presented at Bajo el Sol Gallery (Mongoose Junction), in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, on October 17, 2026, from 5:00 to 6:00pm. [It was originally launched at Island Booksellers, in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI.]
Because of its “broad scope—focusing on a region, rather than a city”, Publishers Weekly explains that this is “one of the best and most varied entries in the [Noir] series.” The Guyana Chronicle adds, “[. . .] Like its predecessors, it presents a strong sense of place in every story, populated by indelible characters and animated by a vividly realized Caribbean ethos . . . offering readers a rich portrait of the Virgin Islands and the people who call them home.”
Contributors are (in alphabetical order): Sophia Aubin, Celeste Rita Baker, Tobias S. Buckell, Richard Georges, Johanna Gibson, Traci O’Dea, Eugenia Vince Omni, O’Neal, Raven Phillips, Gillian Royes, Nisha Khiani Savara, Hadiya Sewer, Cadwell Turnbull, Rea Vanterpool, Tiphanie Yanique.
Description (from the introduction by Tiphanie Yanique and Richard Georges): The writers here represent the greater Virgin Islands, made up of the territories separated, by colonialism, into the British Virgin Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. In sidestepping this political distinction, we honor both the everyday experiences of Virgin Islanders as well as the creative possibilities of fiction . . .
Virgin Islanders keep our secrets close — especially the darker ones. We want to ensure we make a good impression — especially if our livelihoods depend on it, which they often do. For us, Virgin Islands Noir is a major anthology—one of the first to likely reach beyond the islands themselves. But the Virgin Islands is a place literally named for an innocence fearful of exploitation, so it was initially discomforting to many of the writers here that this vision of us would be in noir—a literary genre that highlights crime and disturbia. Over a number of years, the editors charged the storytellers here to write real . . . [O]ne way to claim you exist as a fully complex humanity is to admit that you also have your dangerous sides. Sometimes, maybe, we will be the ones to devour you.
TIPHANIE YANIQUE is a creative writer and educator. Her books include Land of Love and Drowning, which won the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award, and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her writing has also won a Felix Dennis Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and a Boston Review Prize. Yanique was born and raised in the Virgin Islands and is a professor at Emory University.
RICHARD GEORGES is the first Virgin Islands poet laureate and the author of three previous poetry collections: Make Us All Islands, Giant, and Epiphaneia, winner of the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. His poetry and fiction have appeared in Wasafiri, Small Axe, the White Review, Pree, Prelude, and Wildness, among others. A fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study and a Pushcart Prize nominee, Georges is a founding editor of Moko. He lives in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. His lates work is Shore/Lines.
For more information, see https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/virgin-islands-noir-2/