2024 Dublin Literary Award (nominee)
2023 Booker Prize (shortlist)
2023 PEN/Faulkner Award (nominee)
2022 John Leonard Prize for Best First Book (nominee)
2022 National Book Award for Fiction (longlist)
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE
‘Dazzling’ GUARDIAN
‘Blistering’ THE TIMES
'A delight' DIANA EVANS
��Fiction written at the highest level’ ANN PATCHETT
'Hilarious, revelatory' MARLON JAMES
An electrifying, hilarious and deeply moving tragicomic debut novel following a Jamaican family grappling with a new life in the US.
‘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, recession and 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?
‘An astonishingly assured debut novel … clarity, variety and fizzing prose’ BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES
‘So damn funny’ RUMAAN ALAM
‘Astonishing’ I NEWSPAPER
'Utterly unstoppable’ IRISH TIMES
What readers say:
‘So good it was hard to put down’
‘Humour, real feeling … totally recommend’
‘So engrossing and entertaining’
‘A must read’
Genre: Literary Fiction
‘Dazzling’ GUARDIAN
‘Blistering’ THE TIMES
'A delight' DIANA EVANS
��Fiction written at the highest level’ ANN PATCHETT
'Hilarious, revelatory' MARLON JAMES
An electrifying, hilarious and deeply moving tragicomic debut novel following a Jamaican family grappling with a new life in the US.
‘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, recession and 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?
‘An astonishingly assured debut novel … clarity, variety and fizzing prose’ BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES
‘So damn funny’ RUMAAN ALAM
‘Astonishing’ I NEWSPAPER
'Utterly unstoppable’ IRISH TIMES
What readers say:
‘So good it was hard to put down’
‘Humour, real feeling … totally recommend’
‘So engrossing and entertaining’
‘A must read’
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"If I Survive You is a collection of brilliant wit, real heart, and electric humor. Jonathan Escoffery masterfully mines from his life and emerges, in this debut, as a talent not to be ignored." - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
"It's truly a feat that a book of short stories tackling such big stuff--family, love, violence, race--could be so damn funny. Jonathan Escoffery is a writer only just getting started, and his first book is a welcome reminder of what fiction can do." - Rumaan Alam
"Jonathan Escoffery's brilliant first book has some new things to tell us about racial identities, loneliness, and the search for love. It is so sharp-eyed and detailed that you feel that you are living through its scenes. The book is father-haunted and often very funny, and its prose is electric with intelligence. Somehow If I Survive You manages to be scary, humorous, and heartbreaking all at once. I loved this book." - Charles Baxter
"Each story in If I Survive You passes a baton to the next, though it's not for speed but for deepening. As Jonathan Escoffery's debut progresses, the characters layer, stories overlap, voices gather and the result is a moving and layered portrait of a family, at once wise and unflinching." - Aimee Bender
"An electrifying, enthralling debut about identity and belonging. Jonathan Escoffery illuminates both beauty and trauma and the ways in which so many of us Jamaicans are still looking for home within ourselves. Told with humor and clear-eyed grace, this spectacular collection introduces us to an amazing new voice." - Nicole Dennis-Benn
"These are superb stories about identity, family and place. There is a beautiful economy in the telling that never sacrifices the depth, complexity and richness of the worlds these characters inhabit. Jonathan Escoffery's is a strong, much needed new voice in our literature." - Percival Everett
"Jonathan Escoffery writes the Miami I know--where shimmering landscapes and glitzy neon give way to immigrant hustle, financial scams, and societal and family tensions gathering force quietly like the eye of a hurricane. Escoffery is a keen and witty observer with range and style. An exciting new voice." - Gabriela Garcia
"Kaleidoscopic, urgent, hilarious, revelatory and like nothing you've read before." - Marlon James
"If I Survive You is simply one of the best debut story collections I've ever read. Unmistakably original, improbably accomplished, If I Survive You earns Jonathan Escoffery the attention deserved of an important new author." - Mat Johnson
"If I Survive You is a collection of connected short stories that reads like a novel, that reads like real life, that reads like fiction written at the highest level." - Ann Patchett
"A magnificent debut collection. It's astonishing what Jonathan Escoffery accomplishes in If I Survive You. These stories are told with such grace, humor, insight, and precision that readers will want to return again and again. Escoffery is a writer to watch, and we lovers of literature are fortunate to have him." - Maurice Carlos Ruffin
"It's truly a feat that a book of short stories tackling such big stuff--family, love, violence, race--could be so damn funny. Jonathan Escoffery is a writer only just getting started, and his first book is a welcome reminder of what fiction can do." - Rumaan Alam
"Jonathan Escoffery's brilliant first book has some new things to tell us about racial identities, loneliness, and the search for love. It is so sharp-eyed and detailed that you feel that you are living through its scenes. The book is father-haunted and often very funny, and its prose is electric with intelligence. Somehow If I Survive You manages to be scary, humorous, and heartbreaking all at once. I loved this book." - Charles Baxter
"Each story in If I Survive You passes a baton to the next, though it's not for speed but for deepening. As Jonathan Escoffery's debut progresses, the characters layer, stories overlap, voices gather and the result is a moving and layered portrait of a family, at once wise and unflinching." - Aimee Bender
"An electrifying, enthralling debut about identity and belonging. Jonathan Escoffery illuminates both beauty and trauma and the ways in which so many of us Jamaicans are still looking for home within ourselves. Told with humor and clear-eyed grace, this spectacular collection introduces us to an amazing new voice." - Nicole Dennis-Benn
"These are superb stories about identity, family and place. There is a beautiful economy in the telling that never sacrifices the depth, complexity and richness of the worlds these characters inhabit. Jonathan Escoffery's is a strong, much needed new voice in our literature." - Percival Everett
"Jonathan Escoffery writes the Miami I know--where shimmering landscapes and glitzy neon give way to immigrant hustle, financial scams, and societal and family tensions gathering force quietly like the eye of a hurricane. Escoffery is a keen and witty observer with range and style. An exciting new voice." - Gabriela Garcia
"Kaleidoscopic, urgent, hilarious, revelatory and like nothing you've read before." - Marlon James
"If I Survive You is simply one of the best debut story collections I've ever read. Unmistakably original, improbably accomplished, If I Survive You earns Jonathan Escoffery the attention deserved of an important new author." - Mat Johnson
"If I Survive You is a collection of connected short stories that reads like a novel, that reads like real life, that reads like fiction written at the highest level." - Ann Patchett
"A magnificent debut collection. It's astonishing what Jonathan Escoffery accomplishes in If I Survive You. These stories are told with such grace, humor, insight, and precision that readers will want to return again and again. Escoffery is a writer to watch, and we lovers of literature are fortunate to have him." - Maurice Carlos Ruffin
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