Gone to Drift is the first Young Adult novel from the Jamaican writer Diana McCaulay, and was placed second in the 2015 Burt Prize for Caribbean Literature.

Truth? Respect? Survival? Gone to Drift tells the story of Lloyd, a 12-year-old Jamaican boy, and his search for his beloved grandfather, Maas Conrad, a fisherman who is lost at sea. Lloyd suspects that his grandfather has witnessed an illegal capture of dolphins for the tourist trade and that he has been hurt, perhaps even killed. No one wants to help Lloyd except for an uptown girl who studies dolphins, his best friend Dwight and a mad man called Slowly on a sun-baked beach.

Interspersed with Lloyd’s quest on land and sea is a second voice – of Maas Conrad himself, who, unknown to Lloyd is alive but marooned on a rock. In this exciting adventure story Lloyd discovers that the enemies of his grandfather – and of the Caribbean Sea that he loves – are closer to home than he could ever imagine.

“This is my first novel for young adults,” says McCaulay, “and as reading meant so much to me as a teenager, I’m hoping Gone to Drift will be read and enjoyed by many Caribbean young people. I wanted to pay tribute to our long tradition of fishermen, and I’m so grateful the Burt Award has made that possible. I’m also thrilled that Gone to Drift is published by Papillote Press, a Caribbean publishing house which I’ve long admired.”

Gone to Drift follows on from McCaulay’s two acclaimed novels, Dog-Heart (2010) and Huracan (2012) and is built on her 2012 Regional Commonwealth prize-winning short story, The Dolphin Catchers (Granta Online).

Diana McCaulay is an award-winning Jamaican writer and a lifelong resident of its capital city Kingston. She has written two acclaimed novels, Dog-Heart (2010) and Huracan (2012). Dog-Heart won a Gold Medal in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's National Creative Writing Awards (2008), was shortlisted for the Guyana Prize (2011), the IMPAC Dublin Award (2012) and the Saroyan Prize for International Writing (2012). Huracan was also shortlisted for the 2014 Saroyan Prize.Gone to Drift, which was placed second in the 2015 Burt Prize for Caribbean Literature, is McCaulay's first Young Adult novel. It is built on McCaulay's 2012 Regional Commonwealth prize-winning short story, The Dolphin Catchers. Founder and long-time CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust, McCaulay entices her readers with the spirit and complexity of contemporary Jamaica.