Jean Rhys imagines the prequel to Jane Eyre, recounting the relationship between Rochester and his first wife Antoinette, a Creole heiress. Set in the sweltering heat of Jamaica and Dominica, the novel is written in hallucinatory prose that conjures up the perfumed flowers, tropical fruits and grand mansions of their blissful honeymoon, which rapidly decays into malarial madness and tragedy. By proposing a postcolonial feminist critique of Brontë’s canonised classic, Rhys rescues Antoinette – or Bertha Rochester – from her fate as the ‘mad woman in the attic’. We recommend reading Wide Sargasso Sea at Secret Bay Resort in Dominica, a coastal hideaway surrounded by luscious rainforests and island-to-table dining. 

Widely considered a modern classic, The Lonely Londoners by Trinidadian-born Sam Selvon captures the experience of the Windrush generation, who arrived in London from the Caribbean in the 1950s. Humorous and heartbreaking, this novel radically reconceptualised London as a Black city, colonising it in reverse through multiple layers of creolised language. Following a group of friends around Paddington, some giddy with excitement and some jaded by relentless racism, this story is as relevant today as it was when it was published. Stay at the Marylebone Hotel in West London and enjoy stunning rooftop views of the city where this novel is set. 

Winner of the 2015 Booker Prize, this pseudo-historical epic is a hazy retelling of the assassination attempt on Bob Marley. Not for the faint-hearted, this cacophonic novel is full of death, violence and politics which paints a polyphonic portrait of Jamaica in the 1970s. Stay at Jamaica Inn for a taste of local island cuisine and direct beach access.

Set in a fictionalised Tobago village, Monique Roffey dreams up a bittersweet romance between Aycayia, an ancient mermaid and a local fisherman who charms her to the water’s surface with his soulful melodies. When two white Americans ensnare Aycayia and hang her up on land, Roffey abandons her mythological prose and exposes the legacy of colonial enslavement with razor-sharp precision.

Whether you’re reading beachside in Dominica or café-hopping in London, ASMALLWORLD Collection offers thoughtfully chosen hotels to enhance your literary journey.