Nicole Dennis-Benn Anthologies Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Can We All Be Feminists? | 2018 | Buy |
| Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves | 2018 | Buy |
| Emerge: 2021 Lambda Fellows Anthology | 2022 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Here Comes the Sun | 2016 | Buy |
| Patsy | 2019 | Buy |
Nicole Dennis-Benn is a Jamaican novelist born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, who now lives in Brooklyn, New York with her wife. She studied at Cornell University and received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her fiction draws directly on her experience of growing up in Jamaica and immigrating to the United States, exploring the social constraints facing women, the economics of tourism and poverty, and the specific pressures of queer identity in Caribbean communities.
Her debut novel Here Comes the Sun (2016) is set in Montego Bay and follows several women whose lives intersect around a hotel and the tourist economy. The book won the Lambda Literary Award, was named Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.
Patsy (2019), her second novel, follows a Jamaican woman who emigrates to New York hoping to build a new life, leaving her young daughter behind. It won a second Lambda Literary Award, received an Editors’ Choice designation from the New York Times, and was recognized by Time, NPR, People Magazine, and Oprah Magazine. Dennis-Benn has also contributed to multiple anthologies, including Can We All Be Feminists? (2018) and Well-Read Black Girl (2018).