“This is a jewel of a book. Channer’s language is dancing and juicy, his vision penetrating, and his hero is magnificent.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Channer is a gifted storyteller.”
—Washington Post

“A rewarding and tense novella . . . This novella signals the arrival of a talent matured.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Channer has become one of the most significant literary figures in the Caribbean.”
—Globe and Mail (Canada)

“The Girl with the Golden Shoes is a nearly perfect moral fable.”
—Russell Banks, from the Afterword

“Colin Channer continues to charm and surprise us. The Girl with the Golden Shoes takes us on a very moving and mesmerizing journey.”
—Edwidge Danticat, author of The Dew Breaker

“Colin Channer has joined the few writers who’ve created an entirely new and mythical landscape, the island of San Carlos, full of Caribbean legend and pathos, featuring hilarity and a wonderful Estrella Thompson, who’s not just looking for love but for respect and survival. Her journey is a memorable one.”
—Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales

“Estrella is what her name implies/means. She lights up the pages of this extraordinary novella as she negotiates her youth and the characters who populate her island. The culture of class. The culture of love. The culture of race. The culture of gender. All conspire to change her—and they do, and they do, somewhat; but she impacts them also as she continues her trek toward her own resurrection. And what a resurrection she is!”
—Sonia Sanchez, author of Shake Loose My Skin

“A wonderful, deceptively simple island odyssey evoking the will to survive, overcome, and succeed. A haunting book.”
—M.G. Vassanji, author of The Book of Secrets

“Colin Channer is a graceful, natural storyteller with a keen eye and sharp ear. He effortlessly evokes the sense of a place and a people in strong yet subtle strokes. And Estrella is a magnificent heroine, a woman for her time. This is a captivating tale.”
—Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Crescent

“The Girl in the Golden Shoes is lyrical, moving, beautifully constructed, and morally complex. In this novella, Colin Channer continues to expand the possibility of the Caribbean narrative and push the limits of his own oeuvre.”
—Chris Abani, author of The Virgin of Flames

“Estrella Thompson is robust, durable, and sparkling on Colin Channer’s page—a girl trying to invent herself beyond her body and beyond the old animist world of her family; the new gods are no less treacherous but she invents herself in paper, in reading, in radio, in the modern. Channer’s literary prose is muscular and fluid, surreal and fabulous.”
—Dionne Brand, author of What We All Long For

“Just start reading, and see if you can stop. Colin Channer’s prose is that hypnotic, vibrant, beautiful, startling, more alive than life itself.”
—Francisco Goldman, author of The Divine Husband

“The Girl with the Golden Shoes is literary magic of the best kind. Each new character, each new sentence is deceptively simple, imbued with the same astonishing possibility as the best folk tale. A sharp and relevant look at class and race, this book is one of the best I’ve read this year.”
—Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned