Ibis: A Novel

**WINNER OF THE HURSTON/WRIGHT FOUNDATION’S ZORA AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION; WINNER OF THE WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING (FICTION); WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION; WINNER OF THE PEN AMERICA OPEN BOOK AWARD; WINNER OF THE OCM BOCAS PRIZE FOR CARIBBEAN LITERATURE (FICTION); GEORGIA AUTHOR OF THE YEAR (FIRST NOVEL); SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE**
New Felicity’s bad luck goes back centuries. Shaped by slavery, rebellion, and repression, the small coastal village in Trinidad is now facing a crackdown by the government, just as its people have taken in Milagros, an 11-year-old refugee from Venezuela. Meanwhile, scarlet ibis birds have mysteriously started appearing in town, and New Felicity’s superstitious fisherman fear the worst, certain they’ve brought on bad luck by killing a local witch. Skittish that a reporter’s story will bring down the wrath of the Ministry of National Security, the fishermen take things into their own hands.
Justin Haynes’s widely acclaimed *Ibis* moves backward and forward in time, from the town’s early days as a sugar plantation to Milagros’s adulthood as she searches for her mother across the Americas. A novel of mothers and daughters, origins and becomings, *Ibis* is a moving exploration of the migrant crisis and the contemporary Caribbean.