Bookshelf (March/April 1999)
FICTION The Migration Of Ghosts Pauline Melville (Bloomsbury 1998; ISBN 0-7475-3675-9) Here, already on her third book, is a fresh and...
Sam Selvon: Words of Welcome
London in the post-war 1940s was a far cry from the “cool Britannia” of half a century later. Rationing was still in force, choking...
Turnin Han: Marcia Douglas’ Madam Fate
I was born in England to Jamaican immigrants. It was cold that night; my mother groaned and sighed; I tasted her pain and all the...
Ian Randle: the accidental publisher
Let me declare an interest at this point. I know Ian Randle fairly well, have stayed at his home in Kingston, think of him as a friend as...
Domino Effect
What do all Caribbean islands have in common? A shared history, perhaps? A common taste in food? Beaches and sunshine? No, much more...
Beat People
Telling furious secrets When Staceyann Chin commands a mike, she unleashes an arsenal of painful self-portraits and cut-throat metaphors so...
Austin Clarke: “I was a necessary nuisance”
The prize has made my life more hectic than I like. It has opened vistas that I never thought could be associated with writing. I am seeing...
Creole gothic: Freida Cassin’s “With Silent Tread”
Frieda who? No, hardly a household name in the annals of Caribbean literature, but With Silent Tread, first published in Antigua around...
