Hungry Ghosts

Hungry Ghosts

Longlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize
Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

“This is a deeply impressive book, and I think an important one. Its intensity, its narrative attack, the fascinations of its era and setting, make it impossible to tear the attention away. Energy and inventiveness distinguish every page.”

Hungry Ghosts is a sweeping debut from an unforgettable new voice in Caribbean literature. Set in 1940s Trinidad, near the end of American occupation and British colonial rule, the novel follows the intertwined fates of two families—one wealthy, the other impoverished—and a chilling mystery that binds them together.

On a hill above Bell Village stands the Changoor farm, home to Dalton and Marlee Changoor. Below, in the Barrack, a rundown building split into crowded rooms, live the Saroops—Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna. Theirs is a world of poverty, unrelenting labor, and spiritual endurance.

When Dalton mysteriously disappears and Marlee’s safety is threatened, Hans is hired as a watchman on the estate, lured by the promise of stability. But this shift sets off a sequence of events that entangles both families and irreversibly changes the community.

Lyrical and searing, Hungry Ghosts explores themes of class, religion, historical violence, and generational trauma. Rooted in Trinidad’s pastoral landscape and oral storytelling traditions, this novel is an unforgettable meditation on power, sacrifice, and the consequences of injustice.