Ibis: A Novel

WINNER OF THE HURSTON/WRIGHT FOUNDATION’S ZORA AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION; WINNER OF THE WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING (FICTION); WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION; WINNER OF THE PEN AMERICA OPEN BOOK AWARD; WINNER OF THE OCM BOCAS PRIZE FOR CARIBBEAN LITERATURE (FICTION); GEORGIA AUTHOR OF THE YEAR (FIRST NOVEL); SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

New Felicity’s bad luck goes back centuries. Shaped by slavery, rebellion, and repression, the small coastal village in Trinidad is now facing a crackdown by the government, just as its people have taken in Milagros, an 11-year-old refugee from Venezuela. Meanwhile, scarlet ibis birds have mysteriously started appearing in town, and New Felicity’s superstitious fisherman fear the worst, certain they’ve brought on bad luck by killing a local witch. Skittish that a reporter’s story will bring down the wrath of the Ministry of National Security, the fishermen take things into their own hands.

Justin Haynes’s widely acclaimed Ibis moves backward and forward in time, from the town’s early days as a sugar plantation to Milagros’s adulthood as she searches for her mother across the Americas. A novel of mothers and daughters, origins and becomings, Ibis is a moving exploration of the migrant crisis and the contemporary Caribbean.