The Cost of Sugar by Cynthia McLeod is an absorbing historical novel about Jewish planters and enslaved people in 18th-century Suriname. Read it before Jodensavanne or Commewijne; it makes the comfortable plantation-house version of history impossible to accept.
On a Woman's Madness by Astrid Roemer follows Noenka as she leaves an abusive marriage and tries to construct a life in Paramaribo. Lucy Scott's English translation preserves the novel's fractured, sensual intensity and opens a view of race, gender, and freedom far beyond the monumental city centre.
Off-White, also by Astrid Roemer, follows a Surinamese family across generations around independence and migration. It is denser and more demanding, but very good on the private costs of national history.
The Free Negress Elisabeth by Cynthia McLeod draws on the life of Elisabeth Samson, a wealthy free Black woman in colonial Paramaribo. Pair it with the Elisabeth Samson House and keep in mind that wealth and freedom existed inside a society built on slavery.