Here Comes the Sun (Dennis-Benn novel)

Here Comes the Sun
First edition cover
AuthorNicole Dennis-Benn
Audio read byBahni Turpin
Cover artistJennifer Heuer
LanguageEnglish
Set inMontego Bay, Jamaica
PublisherLiveright
Publication date
July 5, 2016
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages352
ISBN978-1-63149-176-4
OCLC921868995
813/.6
LC ClassPS3604.E58657 H47 2016

Here Comes the Sun is a 2016 novel by Nicole Dennis-Benn set in Montego Bay, Jamaica and published by Liveright Publishing Corporation.[1][2] Dennis-Benn's debut novel, the book examines social issues in Jamaica, including skin bleaching, sex work, homophobia, rape, and the impact of tourism on local residents.[3] The novel won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.[2]

Here Comes the Sun has garnered positive critical attention and praise as it explores many of Jamaica's controversial issues. Dennis-Benn hopes her novel will get “people talking and thinking,” as she explores the "themes of love, identity, sexuality, and belonging" that all readers may be able to connect to.[4] Readers tell her "I went through that" as they read about the over-sexualization of girls and the hustle to thrive. One goal of the novel is to give a voice to the ignored issues and complacency in the working class.[5] Reni Eddo-Loge describes the novel as "an engaging debut about exploitation and racial prejudice, as seen through the eyes of three women" showing the "creeping colonialism of the hotel industry" and the "effect of displacement" on local peoples.[6]

The novel seeks to show the racial, social, and economic disparities that are often covered up by the Jamaican government's emphasis on unity. Poor and working-class Jamaicans are exploited “by the tourism industry to repay our [national] debt.”[4] Naive Thandi, hotel worker Margot, her much older sister, and tourist-trapping Dolores, their mother, show, in three generations, the struggle that average Jamaicans face while trying daily to survive and find opportunities for success. According to Jennifer Senior, the novel shows “the ugliest legacy of colonialism,” the “self-hatred, passed down from one generation to the next” as Thandi tries to lighten her skin and her sister and mother remain caught up in the sex and tourism trades.[7]

  1. ^ Cezair-Thompson, Margaret (3 August 2016). "A Novel Looks at the Flip Side of Life in Jamaica's Montego Bay". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  2. ^ a b "29th Annual Lambda Literary Award winners announced" Archived 2018-06-10 at the Wayback Machine. LGBT Weekly, June 13, 2017.
  3. ^ Maye, Dadland (2 January 2019). "Here Comes the Sun". Caribbean Quarterly. 65 (1): 187–189. doi:10.1080/00086495.2019.1565243. S2CID 187563017.
  4. ^ a b Revoyr, Nina, and Nicole Dennis-Benn. "Me Too, I Say, Me Too: Nicole Dennis-Benn on 'Here Comes the Sun'", Los Angeles Review of Books.
  5. ^ NPR Staff (4 July 2016). "'This Is No Paradise': Author Explores The Side Of Jamaica Tourists Don't See". NPR. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  6. ^ Eddo-Lodge, Reni. "Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn Review – the Sinister Side of Jamaica's Tourist Trade", The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 22 March 2017.
  7. ^ Jennifer Senior (29 June 2016). "Review: In 'Here Comes the Sun,' a Hustle to Thrive in Jamaica". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 December 2016.