Abstract
Kevin Jared Hosein’s The Repenters (TR) and Ezekel Alan’s Disposable People (DP) stand out as works of Caribbean Young Adult literature for the ways in which they rely on conflicted child protagonists and altogether dark topics of death and depression to explore worlds steeped in contradiction and dysphoria. They urge the reader to contemplate unresolved issues involving Caribbean identities as well as challenge the perceived innocence and naïveté of child characters. The texts stand out for their focus on different shades of darkness that co-exist as much as they complicate each other. In their own unique ways, the writers attempt to uncover what lies in the shadow and beneath the surface by relying on topics generally deemed unsuitable for children, such as death, sex and depression. Added to this are the representations of childhood which are read in this study as both rhetorical embodiments of postcolonial (re-)reading, in addition to providing key indicators for new and inventive, contemporary directions for the child in the Caribbean.1 To understand the creative representation of childhood and the Caribbean child subjectivity I explore the texts under the term I coin ‘childhood noir’.