The Zaboca Tree (self-published), the third collection of short stories by Ken Jaikaransingh, set after 1945, continues the Trinidadian author’s trajectory of social and political commentary on T&T’s development. The characters — a motley and occasionally vagabond crew — find themselves thrust into an arena of uncertainty and misrule, as competing factors vie for prominence in a fledgling society. Not shying away from the effects of racism, crime, Americanisation, and corruption in both high and low office, Jaikaransingh’s fiction contains often sinister, bathos-laden circumstances that remain inevitably applicable to T&T in 2023.