If I Survive You

Shortlisted for the 2024 Gordon Burn Prize

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

‘What are you?’

This is the puzzled question that greets a young Trelawny growing up in a Miami where his racial ambiguity is regarded with confusion and suspicion. It’s not just his neighbours, his Jamaican parents Topper and Sanya don’t seem to understand him either. Then there’s his stubborn older brother Delano, who is determined to secure a better future for his own children, no matter what it takes.

As both brothers navigate the challenges littered in their path – a woefully unreliable father, racism, recessionand even a hurricane – they find themselves increasingly at odds. Will they make it through together or must one brother’s future come at the cost of the other?