Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke

Aka is returning home to Jamaica for the first time in ten years.

Her younger brother has died suddenly, and Aka hopes to reconnect with her estranged older sister, Tamika. Over three fateful weeks, the sisters visit significant places from their childhood where Aka spreads her brother's ashes.But time spent with Tamika only seems to make apparent how different they are and how alone Aka feels.

Then Aka meets Jayda, a brash stripper who reveals a different side of Kingston. As the two women grow closer, Aka is forced to confront the difficult reality of being gay in a deeply religious family, and what it means to be a gay woman in Jamaica. Her trip comes to a frenzied and dangerous end, but not without a glimmer of hope of how to be at peace with her sister and herself.

By turns diasporic family saga, bildungsroman, and terse sexual awakening,Broughtupsyasks: What are we willing to do for family, and what are we willing to do to feel at home? (From House of Anansi)

Christina Cooke is a Jamaican-born Canadian writer based in New York City. Cooke'swriting has previously appeared inPRISM international,The Caribbean Writer,Prairie Schooner and Epiphany. A MacDowell Fellow, Writers' Trust M&S Journey Prize winner, and 2022 Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award winner, she holds an MA from the University of New Brunswick and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.