"Book of the Little Axe"

-Finalist for the 2020 Hurston/Wright Award in Fiction

-2020 American Library Association's "Libraries Transform Book Pick"

"Til the Well Runs Dry"

-2014 O, the Oprah Magazine Summer Pick

-2014 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Fiction Award

Dear Readers,

Thank you for all the loving comments you’ve sent my way over the years. Your enthusiasm and appreciation for Marcia and Jacqueline from ‘Til the Well Runs Dry, and the entire Rendon family from Book of the Little Axe, continue to lift me in those hours where I doubt if what I put on the page even matters. I took all of your steady encouragement into the writing of my next novel, and I am happy to announce that in February of 2025, you will finally meet Prudence! She has been with me for over twenty years, since shortly after my time living in South Africa, and she will soon share her story. Casualties of Truth is unlike anything I have written, and I mean that in all the best ways! I cannot wait to see you all next year! Keep coming back here for news and events!

Meet Lauren

entertain and enlighten

Book of the Little Axe

**The 2020 American Library Association’s “Libraries Transform Book Pick”**
A masterfully wrought epic, spanning decades and oceans from Trinidad to the American West. Against a backdrop of colonialism and westward expansion, Francis-Sharma’s characters seek desperately to understand where they belong.

Keep Reading

‘Til The Well Runs Dry

**Short-Listed for William Saroyan International Prize for Writing Black Caucus of the American Library Association 2015 Honor for Fiction**‘
Til the Well Runs Dry opens in a seaside village in the north of Trinidad where young Marcia Garcia, a gifted and smart-mouthed 16-year-old seamstress, lives alone, raising two small boys and guarding a family secret.

Keep Reading