Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James returned to his hometown of Kingston in 2023 and 2024 on an unusual research trip: tracking down the queer history of Jamaica that he, growing up there in the 1980s, never got to live. The result is The Disappearers, a 640-page novel about a group of queer men rehearsing a play when an anti-gay hate crime shatters them, now nominated for the Booker Prize.
James's fieldwork turned up details that would surprise many visitors. Kingston once had five gay bars running at the same time, with names like Fanny Hill, Andante, and two rival Marshall's — opened by co-owners after a falling out, neither willing to surrender the name. At Andante, a jazz bar by day, everyone knew the drag queens took the stage by 9 p.m., drawing celebrities and even the prime minister's brother. By the late 1980s and '90s, all of it was gone, as AIDS-era preaching pushed nightlife underground.
One of his most vivid finds sits about an hour from Montego Bay: Mountambrin, an artists' retreat started by what James believes is Jamaica's oldest gay man, around 90. It began as a hotel primarily for queer guests, opened to everyone out of financial necessity, and still operates — complete with phallic art and statues of naked men. The fact that queer Jamaicans now stay in the country rather than fleeing, James says, signals something like hope.
He also found generational shifts. At his alma mater, the University of the West Indies, a queer students' association exists — something that shocked him — and its members brushed off his "it gets better" speech, more concerned with Beyoncé versus Rihanna than with survival. An interviewee rode the bus in pink hair and a pink jumpsuit. But James resists a rosy picture: lesbians he spoke with described weekly rape threats, and advocacy groups like Equality for All exist for a reason.
For travellers, the piece reframes Jamaica beyond the resort strips. James's account shows a country actively wrestling with its history — colonialism, religion, and the erasure of queer life — where ordinary people, not just politicians, made that history. His tips on experiencing a place ring true for any visitor: unpack your bags completely, he says, and you stop feeling like a tourist and start taking a country on its own terms.
Who's this for? Readers of literary fiction planning a Jamaican trip with substance, LGBTQ+ travellers curious about the island's complicated past and changing present, and anyone who likes their travel inspiration with a booklist attached.