Paria Publishing Company Limited

27/07/2026

"What one inherits, and what one in turn passes on, is the stuff of life itself and always will be." This is the last sentence of Ian McDonald's book "Inheritance - the Story of a West Indian Family", which we had the pleasure to produce for him and his family.
Ian, of Antiguan heritage, was born and grew up in Trinidad and spent his adult life in Guyana and in Canada. A prolific poet, he captured the world around him with the great gentleness of spirit that sprang from his own romantic soul. He lived the full life of a Caribbean man of the 20th century, filling the many shoes of a business career, public service appointments, being an internationally ranked tennis player, raising a family with his beloved wife Mary, and writing for the Guyanese Stabroek News.
His book "the Hummingbird Tree" was made into a full-length feature feature film, and his many other books of poetry, drama, non-fiction, those that he edited and an anthology he co-produced about West Indian Cricket Writing won him the Guyana prize for Literature on several occasions and an honorary doctorate from The UWI.
Paria Publishing is happy and honoured to have published and/or produced a trilogy of family memoirs for the McDonald family (comprising "Beloved", "Archie" and "Carmody Road"), as well as "Inheritance", in which Ian describes the story of his family, and "Family Album", a collection of his poems that were collected and edited by his sister Robin McDonald.
Our condolences go to his wife Mary, his brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren. May his great and happy soul rest in eternal peace.

01/07/2026

08/06/2026

ESG reports, whether stand-alone or part of an organisation's annual report, have become the number 1 tool to demonstrating accountability to investors and other stakeholders.
We offer ESG report designs built around your ESG data and journey; from making sure your narrative is cohesive and interesting, to creative design with effective data visualisation, and formatting for both print and digital distribution.

05/06/2026

An annual report isn’t just a standard document. It is a direct reflection of everything your organisation has achieved over the past year. We know the sheer amount of time and effort it takes to accumulate the data, which is exactly why we are here to make the process that follows effortless for you. From strategy and copywriting to design, layout and printing, Paria ensures the final piece is cohesive, well-crafted and professionally produced—confidential, on time and on budget.

30/05/2026

Happy Indian Arrival Day everyone! As the discussion about renaming Nelson Island is on the news, we pulled Fr. de Verteuil's "Western Isles of Trinidad" from our bookshelf. It has a section about the history of that little rock that's so important in the history of Indian immigration to Trinidad. So if you want to know why we put that red "I" into the caption, get yourself a copy of de V.'s book! Available in local bookstores and online.

25/05/2026

We dug in our digital archive and found a couple of programmes that the Government Information Service recorded with Paria Publishing's founder, historian Jerry Besson in around 2011-2014. These are three lectures about Trinidad and Tobago's history and folklore, which we believe fans of local culture might enjoy! Head over to our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com//videos and we are sure you'll find something interesting!

20/04/2026

Thank you Paper Based Bookshop this brings back memories! LeRoy had all his books designed and produced by Paria Publishing, which was always good fun. We will always miss him for his sense of humour and creative spirit!

We begin World Art Day with LeRoy Clarke, a visionary whose work speaks to the depth of Caribbean consciousness. His pieces invite us to reflect, question, and feel.

Start your art journey with us today—step into the shop and explore.

28/01/2026

We love the virtual tour of the Angostura Museum that our founder Jerry Besson had designed in the late 1990s. https://angostura.com/tours/

16/12/2025

Think you are not interested in biographies? Hey - that's what you do when you scrollscrollscroll! We think that these books are simply much more fun than scrolling. For one, they are about people who actually live or lived here in Trinidad. For two, they are really amusing and exciting stories (sometimes sad as well). For three, each one has its unique writing style, and they are lavishly illustrated.
So here we are:
a) Beloved and Archie are the memoirs of Thelma Seheult who married Archie Macdonald and fortunately both were avid diarists, so their children were able to piece together their love and life stories. Very nostalgic when life was much simpler in Trinidad, and Archie has a fascinating section about visiting plantations on horseback on the North Coast when cocoa was king.
b) Trinidad Doctor's Office. A hilarious memoir by Scottish doctor Vincent Tothill who worked as a GP in the oilfields and sugar belt in the 1920s and 30s. He fell in love with Trinidadians and had acute powers of observation Oh yes did we mention hilarious?
c) Roume de St. Laurent, A Memoir is part historical novel, part memoir/diary. The story of the French-descended Grenadian who got the Cedula for Population from the King of Spain in 1783, and his very interesting wife Marianne. Oh yes and the French revolution - well you just gotta read it.
d) Nil Illegitimi Carborundum (Don't let the bastards grind you down). The Memoir by Ronald Harford, retired Republic Banker, whose working years took him all over the Caribbean where he enjoyed the idiosyncrasies of people in far-flung places and learnt a lot about how to build a successful career.
So now get one or all of these are Christmas gifts! We promise you they are sooooo great. Much better than scrolling.

BOOK SPECIALISTS .khanbookstore

13/12/2025

What better gift than magical realism, authentic characters, adventurous plots, plenty sailing, gory battle scenes, love, lust and desire, and all of this against the backdrop of Revolutions that found their echo in Trinidad and the Caribbean? Well, Gérard A Besson fortunately left us five historical novels that contain all this and more. Meticulously researched over 20 years, this quintet is hands-down the best writing produced in Trinidad and Tobago at the beginning of the 21st century.
a) The Voice in the Govi - fictional novella about two 19th century women immersed in obeah and folklore
b) Roume de St. Laurent, A Memoir - Adventurous historical novel about the man who brought a population to Trinidad in 1783, and his coloured wife Marianne who was well good for sheself
c) From the Gate of Aksum - Dan-Brown-style historical novel surrounding the restarting of the Bolivarian Revolution by a bunch of Trini Freemasons, oh yes and a mysterious object that comes to Trinidad from mythical Aksum in Africa (the retrieval of which is a riot of a story in itself)
d) Philippine Book First, Second and Third - a docudrama in book form. In Book First we meet Jeanette, free Negro woman of Carriacou and Grenada, her husband Honoré Philippe, a French baker, their children. To us the very best writing that Besson ever produced. Book Second is about their descendant Jean-Baptiste Philippe in Trinidad, who won the first civil rights case in the New World and wrote "A Free Mulatto", and Book Third about Maxwell Philipp, a 19th century political figure and lawyer in Port of Spain.
We absolutely promise that there's nothing like these books in Trinidad and the wider Caribbean, and that you will be amazed on every page by the humour, imagination and hair-raising tales.

BOOK SPECIALISTS .khanbookstore