Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions
by Nalo Hopkinson
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Pub Date Oct 29 2024 | Archive Date Not set
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Description
Caribbean-Canadian author Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, Falling in Love with Hominids) is an internationally renowned storyteller. This long-awaited new collection of her deeply imaginative short fiction offers striking journeys to far-flung futures and fantastical landscapes. Hopkinson is at the peak of her powers, moving effortlessly between art, folklore, science, and magic.
[STARRED REVIEW] “A commanding short story collection, Caribbean Canadian Nalo Hopkinson’s Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions blends ecological awareness, cultural heritage, and fantastical happenings.
—Foreword
Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as having “an imagination that most of us would kill for,” Nalo Hopkinson and her Afro-Caribbean, Canadian, and American influences shine in truly unique stories that are gorgeously strange, inventively subversive, and vividly beautiful.
In Hopkinson's first collection since 2015, a woman and her cyborg pig eke out a living in a future waterworld; two scientists contemplate the cavernous remains of an alien lifeform; and an artist creates nanotechnology that asserts Blackness where it is least welcome.
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
[STARRED REVIEW] “A commanding short story collection, Caribbean Canadian Nalo Hopkinson’s Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions blends ecological awareness, cultural heritage, and fantastical happenings... Climate change is a recurring theme: there are diseased, parched landscapes and ravaging floods. Many of the characters are resourceful women of color who are determined to improve their troubled environments; they summon
remarkable scientific, technological, and mechanical abilities to heal others and solve problems. Enriched with a marrow of emotion, the short stories of Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions move beyond bleak dystopian landscapes into a curious universe marked by damage and possibility”
—Foreword
“Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions is a treasure box, a mojo pot of stories to break your heart and mend it too. Nalo Hopkinson’s fables, ghost tales, alien encounters, and automaton adventures are a sheer delight. Magic on the page. Hopkinson’s language carries you to revelation and joy. Characters you’ve been lusting after do tricks with your mind. These dazzling stories will reacquaint you with your spirits!”
—Andrea Hairston, author of Archangels of Funk
“Jamaica Ginger is a powerful and salient reminder of just how amazing a storyteller we are graced with in the form of Nalo Hopkinson! This carefully curated collection is a tapestry of Nalo’s mastery and truly displays what a master of the form can do.”
—John Jennings, New York Times bestselling author and Hugo Award-winning comics creator
“I had encountered some of Nalo Hopkinson’s stories before starting this collection and admired them. So it’s with pleasure I can say this is another varied set with which she shows a talent for making strange and thought-provoking tales with concerns including Western and Caribbean cultures, gender, climate change and adaptation and resilience.”
—Too Many Fantasy Books
“Jamaica Ginger is a mélange of stories that spins together roots, dreams, and powerful tales the way only Nalo can. It’s easy to get lost in the verses and images that drip from the page. A must read.”
—Tobias Buckell, author of A Stranger in the Citadel
Praise for Nalo Hopkinson
“A major talent.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Nalo Hopkinson has had a remarkable impact on popular fiction. Her work continues to question the very genres she adopts, transforming them from within through her fierce intelligence and her commitment to a radical vision that refuses easy consumption.” —Globe and Mail
“One of the best fantasy authors working today.” —io9
“An exciting new voice in our literature.” —Edmonton Journal
“Like Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler, [Hopkinson] forces us to consider how inequities of race, gender, class and power might be played out in a dystopian future.” —The News Magazine of Black America
“Hopkinson’s stories dazzle” —NPR Books
“The power of Hopkinson’s stories lies in their capacity to help us reimagine our own movement through the world and to wonderfully innovate new trajectories for speculative fiction as a whole.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Caribbean science fiction? Nalo Hopkinson is staking her claim as one of its most notable authors.” —Caribbean Travel and Life
“Hopkinson’s prose is a distinct pleasure to read: richly sensual, with high-voltage erotic content and gorgeous details.” —SCIFI.com
Praise for the short story collection Falling in Love with Hominids
“A must read for fantasy and short story fans” —Portland Book Review
“Hopkinson’s stories stack up well against their source of inspiration, but her voice is clearly her own, charged with deep feeling and vast imagination.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“The stories all share a common thread of magic, which is often woven, whether subtly or blatantly, into the fabric of everyday reality, allowing characters to react to the strange or the impossible as it crosses into their world.” —Publishers Weekly
“Falling In Love With Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson introduced me to speculative fiction with Black queer characters.” —Wear Your Voice
“Every reader will surely find something to love, as this collection is often hilariously funny, deeply tragic, intensely engaging, and strongly steeped with fantastic elements.” —Civilian Reader
“In this collection of luminous stories, Nalo Hopkinson writes with an observant intensity.” —World Literature Today
“Overflows with originality, beauty, and Hopkinson’s trademark depiction of human decency.” —Women’s Review of Books
“A wonderful treat for Nalo Hopkinson fans and a fantastic introduction for new readers.” —New York Journal of Books
“Nalo Hopkinson paints the places she knows in the way that Márquez embodies the soul of Central America, or the way Bradbury captures Illinois summers.” —Fiction Foresight
“A writer at the height of her powers.” —The Canadian Science Fiction Review
“Hopkinson resembles Le Guin. Go find this book and read it.” —File 770
Marketing Plan
- Prepublication endorsements and reviews from leading authors, review, and media outlets in the U.S. and Canada, and general publications for literary, fantasy, science fiction, Black, and LGBTQIA+ audiences
- Print and digital advance reader copies to be distributed and available upon request
- Author tour to include book launch events in U.S. and Canada; appearances at the World Science Fiction convention and SF in SF
- Online features to include Instagram tour, reviews, interviews, Reddit AMA, and social media campaign
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781616964269 |
| PRICE | $15.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 208 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Anita S, Librarian
Hopkinson is one of my literary idols and has the rare combination of both her short stories being distinctive and amazing, as well as longer forms, including novellas and novels.
When I heard that she was releasing a new collection of short stories called “Jamaica Ginger and Other Concotions,” I leapt for joy, because her short stories are often little universes onto their own.
While I won’t be reviewing each and every individual story, I would like to highlight some of them that spoke to me more than others. These included:
* “Ally” which comes with a helpful note from the author at the start that gives more context particularly as this story features a trans woman protagonist.
* “Broad Dutty Water: A Sunken Story” which I previously read and enjoyed when it first came out
* “Clap Back,” which uses very interesting narrative devices to tell the story.
* The title story, “Jamaica Ginger,” of course, which was something for an anthology celebrating Samuel R. “Chip” Delaney, who was one of Hopkinson’s instructors when she attended Clarion.
* “Repatriation”
* “Propagation”
Kathryn M, Reviewer
I loved the collection of short stories and that Nalo Hopkinson was able to share their culture with the reader. It had that overall voice that I was hoping for and glad I got to read this. Each story was everything that I wanted and enjoyed how everything worked with the writing.
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