Straight off the bat, Sharon Gordon tells you that Sheribaby, her first book, is not a memoir. It is, however, inspired by her childhood in Rollington Town, east Kingston, during a tumultuous period in Jamaica.

Sheribaby was launched on May 10 at VP Records’ office in Queens, New York. Gordon, a stalwart of the West Indian cultural scene, signed books and shared recollections of her life in Jamaica with family, friends, and well-wishers.

It took her one year to complete the book, which covers 1969-75, a time of societal change in Jamaica.

“It’s important to point out that Sheribaby is not my memoir. Yes, the story is based loosely on my life but I have taken creative license to fictionalise a lot of what happened to me and write a story that is very close to me but no, it is not a memoir,” Gordon told Observer Online.

The global COVID-19 lockdown that started in 2020 allowed her to start writing a book that gives insight into Jamaica which gained independence from Britain in August 1962, the year Gordon was born. It also covers the early and mid-1970s when the country was run by socialist prime minister Michael Manley.

“I chose to write about that period 1969 to 1975 as it was a very impactful time in my life growing up in Jamaica. I looked at my granddaughters now ages four and seven and wondered, ‘what would they know of this place called Jamaica’,” said Gordon. “In addition, there was just so much happening at that time politically/culturally etc, and the awareness of who we were as Jamaicans, having just recently claimed independence from Britain and what that really looked like at that time.”

Sheribaby is written in the Jamaican dialect, a form championed by literary giants like legendary folklorist Louise “Miss Lou” Bennett-Coverley, one of Gordon’s biggest influences. By the time she migrated to the United States in 1979, Miss Lou was her full-fledged hero.

While stressing that Sheribaby is not an autobiography, Gordon admits there are several similarities with the book’s main character.

“Like the protagonist, I was born in October, 1962 and I felt a yearning to recapture that period but through the eyes of a little girl which has never been done in Caribbean literature before. Living in America for as long as I have, I have always told stories about my early days of discovery and adventure growing up in Jamaica and this period was such a vibrant period for us as a people,” she said. “We were full of pride and industry. Like the protagonist, I danced for Jayteens; I too attended St Joseph’s and I too lived in Rollington Town. Yes, like the protagonist, during that period my family had a thriving business as well, and yes I heard many stories in my yard and at my mother’s factory and they stayed with me.”