One Minute Book Review: Marcus Garvey by Rupert Lewis

Name of the book: Marcus Garvey
Author:  Rupert Lewis
Publisher:  University of the West Indies Press

What's the book about?
This biography of Marcus Garvey documents the forging of his remarkable vision of pan-Africanism and highlights his organizational skills in framing a response to the radical global popular upsurge following the First World War (1914–1918).

Central to Garvey’s response was the development of organizations under the umbrella of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, which garnered the transnational support of several million members and sympathizers and challenged white supremacist practices and ideas.

Garvey established the ideological pillars of twentieth-century pan-Africanism in promoting self-determination and self-reliance for Africa’s independence. Although Garvey travelled widely and lived abroad in New York and London, he spent his early years in Jamaica. Rupert Lewis traces how Garvey’s Jamaican formation shaped his life and thought and how he combated the British colonial authorities as well as fought deep-rooted self-doubt and self-rejection among Jamaican black people. Garvey’s much neglected political and cultural work at the local level is discussed as part of his project to stimulate self-determination in Africa and its diaspora.

Why am I reading the book?

Professor Rupert Lewis is one of the leading scholars on Marcus Garvey's life and work. For fifty years he has been a public educator on Marcus Garvey and the Garvey movement. He is the author of Marcus Garvey: Anti-Colonial Champion and Walter Rodney’s Intellectual and Political Thought, and co-editor (with Patrick Bryan) of Garvey: His Work and Impact and (with Maureen Warner-Lewis) of Garvey: Africa, Europe, the Americas. He is also the co-editor (with Maureen Warner-Lewis) of Garvey: Africa, Europe, the Americas (Trenton: Africa World Press, 1994). Professor Lewis has served as member of the Council of the Institute of Jamaica and as Chairman of the African-Caribbean Institute of Jamaica and Jamaica Memory Bank. He is also Chairman of the “Friends of Liberty Hall – The Legacy of Marcus Garvey,” comprising a multimedia museum, library, an outreach project in downtown Kingston and a journal 76 King St. He is a member of the Jamaica Reparations Commission appointed by the Government of Jamaica which began work in May 2009. Follow him on Twitter @gbgandad.

Quote from the book:

"Throughout Garvey’s life controversy about his ideals and his leadership meant that the functioned in perpetual ideological, cultural, political, and economic minefields as he sought to challenge the racial subordination and economic exploitation being experienced by Africans. He was not always right on tactical issues, but the need for realignment of power in the interest of Africa and its peoples called for the fundamental restructuring of global power" (10).

Where to buy: http://www.uwipress.com/books/marcus-garvey

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1 Minute Book Review: Nairobi Heat by Mukoma Wa Nguigi

Name of the book: Nairobi Heat

Author:   Mukoma Wa Nguigi

Publisher:  Melville International Crime

What's the book about? 

A cop from Wisconsin pursues a killer through the terrifying slums of Nairobi and the memories of genocide

IN MADISON, WISCONSIN, it’s a big deal when African peace activist Joshua Hakizimana—who saved hundreds of people from the Rwandan genocide—accepts a position at the university to teach about “genocide and testimony.” Then a young woman is found murdered on his doorstep.

Local police Detective Ishmael—an African-American in an “extremely white” town—suspects the crime is racially motivated; the Ku Klux Klan still holds rallies there, after all. But then he gets a mysterious phone call: “If you want the truth, you must go to its source. The truth is in the past. Come to Nairobi.”

It’s the beginning of a journey that will take him to a place still vibrating from the genocide that happened around its borders, where violence is a part of everyday life, where big-oil money rules and where the local cops shoot first and ask questions later—a place, in short, where knowing the truth about history can get you killed.


Why am I reading the book? I met Mukoma Wa Ngugi at the Yardstick Festival and heard him read from Nairobi Heat at one of the afternoon panels. Coming from Miami where crime novels are de rigeur, I thought it was an interesting concept of having an African-American and African cop partnered in Kenya to solve the mystery of a dead blonde girl found on the doorsteps of a renowned African peace activist who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. I read Nairobi Heat the next day. I was not disappointed.


Quote from the book: "Were we manipulating race? The calculation was simple: one million lives did not move the world, African countries included, to intervene, but the death of one beautiful blonde girll would. We did not create that equation--we found it as it was. And we would use it to get justice."

Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Nairobi-Heat-Melville-International-Crime/dp/1935554646

Novelist, poet, and literary scholar, Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Black Star Nairobi (Melville, 2013), Nairobi Heat (Penguin, SA 2009, Melville House Publishing, 2011), an anthology of poetry titled Hurling Words at Consciousness (AWP, 2006) and is a columnist for Ebony.com and a regular contributor to Kenya Yetu Magazine.  He was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2009.  In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Penguin Prize for African Writing for his novel manuscript, The First and Second Books of Transition.  Mukoma holds a PHD in English from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, an MA in Creative Writing from Boston University and a BA in English and Political Science from Albright College. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Cornell University.


Source: http://www.mukomawangugi.com/

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1 Minute Book Review: Every Boy Should Have a Man by Preston Allen

Name of the book: Every Boy Should Have a Man

Author:   Preston L. Allen 

Publisher:  Akashic Books

What's the book about?

In a world where Oafs are at the top of the food chain and humans have become pets, what happens when a "female man" wanders into the life of a poor, young oaf?

Why am I reading the book?

Preston Allen is one of the most gifted writers working in Miami. Read all of his books. You will not be disappointed.

Quote from the book: [Description of the mans] "In color, they ranged from the crystalline pale of a sea bell to the golden yellow-brown of a burnt met stick...And their noses! They were generously bulbous, impertinently pointed, gallantly winged, impudently pugged, or nobly sloping like an oaf's."

Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Every-Boy-Should-Have-ebook/dp/B00CAZ49BE/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Preston L. Allen grew up in Boston and Miami, where as a latchkey eldest brother of five he learned to tell stories to entertain the others and keep them from bouncing off the walls while their parents were at work.

A recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Fiction and winner of the Sonja H. Stone Prize in Literature, he is author of the short story collection Churchboys and Other Sinners (Carolina Wren Press 2003) and the novels All or Nothing (Akashic 2007) and Jesus Boy (Akashic 2010), which "O the Oprah Magazine" listed as one of "Ten More Titles to Read Now," Dennis Lehane called "a tender masterpiece," and about which the New York Times proclaimed, "no one does church sexy like Allen."

His short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals and have been anthologized in Miami Noir, Las Vegas Noir, Brown Sugar, Wanderlust, Making the Hook Up, and Here We Are: an Anthology of South Florida Writers.

His latest novel, Every Boy Should Have a Man, which has been called by Booklist "Imaginative, versatile, and daring," is about, well, boys in a fictive world who own men as pets.

He holds a BA in English from the University of Florida and an MFA in creative writing from Florida International University. He lives and teaches writing in South Florida.

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1 Minute Book Review: Disposable People by Ezekel Alan.

Name of the book: Disposable People: Inspired by true events [Kindle Edition]

Author:   Ezekel Alan

Publisher:  Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

What's the book about?

Disposable People is the coming of age novel about Kenny Lovelace, who grew up in a small village in Jamaica-- "that hateful f**king place."

Why am I reading the book?

Disposable People is the Caribbean regional winner of the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize.

Quote(s)from the book:

"Sometimes he smiled, revealing a set of teeth that a cosmetic dentist looking for a challenge would die for."

"The newly acqired knowledge that ethics was a foreign language that few people spoke turned out to be very enlightening."

"There are some people that, when they smile with the Universe, the Universe smiles back at them, and may even strike up a conversation. There are other people who, when they smile with the Universe, the Universe simply nods a slight acknowledgment. And then there are those people who, when they smile at the Universe, the Universe tells profanity at them like, "What the fuck you smiling at nigga?"

"This is how I came to see, for the first time, not my papa and mama, not my aunts and uncles, not Tommy and Brian and all, but instead just a graveyard full of disposable people, some of whose graves were now being reused to bury the newly dead."

Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Disposable-People-Inspired-events-ebook/dp/B007C653RU/ref=tmm_kin_title_0

Ezekel Alan is a Jamaican consultant working in Asia. He lives with his wife and kids, and has a good reliable dog. Disposable People is his debut novel which was a Regional Winner for the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize. Ezekel blogs at www.ezekelalan.com.

Highly Recommended: 4 1/2 out of 5


Mary Hanna's review: http://ezekelalan.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/observerreview.pdf

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1 Minute Book Review: Exceptional Violence by Deborah A. Thomas

Name of the book: Exceptional Violence: Embodied Citizenship in Transnational Jamaica 

Author:  Deborah A. Thomas 

Publisher: Duke University Press Books 

What's the book about?  "Exceptional Violence is a sophisticated examination of postcolonial state formation in the Caribbean, considered across time and space, from the period of imperial New World expansion to the contemporary neoliberal era, and from neighborhood dynamics in Kingston to transnational socioeconomic and political fields. Deborah A. Thomas takes as her immediate focus violence in Jamaica and representations of that violence as they circulate within the country and abroad. Through an analysis encompassing Kingston communities, Jamaica’s national media, works of popular culture, notions of respectability, practices of punishment and discipline during slavery, the effects of intensified migration, and Jamaica’s national cultural policy, Thomas develops several arguments. Violence in Jamaica is the complicated result of a structural history of colonialism and underdevelopment, not a cultural characteristic passed from one generation to the next. Citizenship is embodied; scholars must be attentive to how race, gender, and sexuality have been made to matter over time. Suggesting that anthropologists in the United States should engage more deeply with history and political economy, Thomas mobilizes a concept of reparations as a framework for thinking, a rubric useful in its emphasis on structural and historical lineages."

Why am I reading the book?

I came of age during one of the most violent periods in Jamaican history. I've been trying to understand the causes of violence during the seventies and after. Exceptional Violence has given me many valuable insights about this complex issue. Thomas also examines the involvement of RastafarI in the reparations movement, their willingness to be classified as "indigenous," and an investigation of "Bad Friday" vis-a-vis violence in Jamaican culture.

Quote from the book: 

"What is needed to generate real justice, in other words, is a sustained conversation about history--and about the place of the past in the present--in terms other than those of righteous blame or liberal guilt."


Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Exceptional-Violence-Embodied-Citizenship-Transnational/dp/0822350866

Deborah A. Thomas is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Modern Blackness: Nationalism, Globalization, and the Politics of Culture in Jamaica and a co-editor of Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness, both also published by Duke University Press.

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Disclaimer of Endorsement

The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

1 Minute Book Review:Connecting the Dots by Eglantine Franco

Name of the Book: Connecting the Dots

Author: Eglantine Franco


Publisher: Xlibris

What's the book about?: Connecting the Dots by Eglantine Franco recounts the traumatic experience in a young woman's life from an initial event caused a physical disability to what would later manifest itself as a personality disorder. Franco chronicles the events that led up to the diagnosis of a girl who now suffers from borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Why am I reading the book?: In our culture, there is so much guilt surrounding mental disorders that I was drawn to this story that sheds light on a subject that is surrounded by unnecessary shame.

Quote from the book: "Unfortunately, there is this unrealistic standard placed on most young people today. Their bodies are not created to fit into "one size fits all." Humans from all over the world come from different races, have different genes, and have differently proportioned and shaped bodies. Yet garments are mass produced, and these young bodies are forced to fit into these clothes" (30).

Where can you buy the book? Amazon.com: Connecting the Dots: From Erb's Palsy to Anorexia Nervosa to Borderline Personality Disorder

Kindle Store http://amzn.to/HgpZMe

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1 Minute Book Review:Wheels by Kwame Dawes

Name of the book: Wheels

Author: Kwame Dawes

Publisher: Peepal Tree Press 

What's the book about? "In Wheels, Kwame Dawes brings the lyric poem face to face with the politics, natural disasters, social upheavals and ideological complexity of the world in the first part of this century...these are poems seeking a way to understand the world." 

Why am I reading the book? Kwame Dawes, one of the Caribbean's leading writers, translates Ezekiel's vision of "wheels within wheels" to an Antillean reality.

Quote from the book: 


In the season of drought and hurricane
the stiff earth cracks and the spawned
eggs of mosquitoes burst into a plague
of coughs and side stitches.

From "Last Days"

Where to buy: http://www.peepaltreepress.com/single_book_display.asp?isbn=9781845231422&au_id=16

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1 Minute Book Review: The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man by Nick Makoha

Name of the book: The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man 
Author:  Nick Makoha  
Publisher:  Flipped Eye Publishing 
What's the book about? 
Nick Makoha's first collection of poems, The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man, recalls the dilemma of Ralph Ellison's protagonist but relocates the angst and passion of displacement in contemporary England. Somewhere between Uganda and England, Nick Makoha is redefining manhood, fatherhood, and intimacy in a Black British context.
Why am I reading the book? 
I met Nick Makoha at the Yardstick Festival. As writers from the African diaspora, I was intrigued by his poems because of the similarity in the themes we  are exploring, but also by the generational and national differences. 
Quote from the book:
The Light 
The city clings like skin to the back of me, like summer sweat, my oils mixing
with the humidity of the night. Sleep the language I am speaking,
every move mimicking death. My body leaves a signature
in the sheets. I rise; my feet touch the carpet’s canvas cooling me slightly. The window spilling moonlight
into the room. Artificial light born from the TV mimics the light of the sky. Voices like my vision, blurred.
My hands snakes to the remote to mute the sound that brought me to sleep and in this moment awakens me.

Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-Collection-Invisible-Mouthmark/dp/1905233035/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375712586&sr=8-  1&keywords=Nick+Makoha

About the Author

Nick 'urbanspirit' Makoha is an immensely talented poet of Ugandan origin. On stage he drops he drops a succession of interwoven one-liners so deep that every longitude ever imagined begins to shiver with insecurity. The original poet-in-residence with London's revered performance showcase, Kindred Spirit, urbanspirit catapulted himself to legendary status by disappearing off the poetry scene for two years. He re-emerged in early 2005 with a completed poetry chapbook, The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man, and has begun to reclaim the territory he haunted for many years.
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1 Minute Book Review: The Mermaid Escapade

Name of the book: The Mermaid Escapade [Kindle Edition]

Author:  Suzanne Francis-Brown 

Publisher:  SFB Publications

What's the book about? 
The water in Salt Cove is turning brackish and neither humans nor merpeople, know why. Three human children, Elena, Kwame and Abena, team up with two young merpeople, Lula and Susura, from the realm of the River Mumma, to solve the mystery. 

Why am I reading the book? 
I first heard about The Mermaid Escapade on Diane Browne's blog (http://dianebrowneblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/despatches-important-first-caribbean.html) and immediately downloaded the book. I was interested in the ebook not only because it's written by a Caribbean author who lives in Jamaica, but also the plot revolves around a central water spirit of Caribbean mythology, River Mumma aka Oshun/ Yemoja/ Erzulie. 

Quote from the book: "Abena's grandmother tightened up her lips and drew together the skin between her eyebrows, until it looked like the furrows in a newly ploughed land. When Mama Sara looked like that, it meant long grumblings between her and her Lord above. And woe be unto any little pass-deh-place grandchild caught giggling or rolling their eyes."

Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mermaid-Escapade-ebook/dp/B00C2OD3VK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369076239&sr=1-1&keywords=mermaid+escapades

Suzanne Francis-Brown enjoys bringing words to the party; crafting worlds and pitting her wits against creeps she's dredged from the deep. She has worked in journalism and public relations, and more recently added heritage and history to the mix.

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1 Minute Review: Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat

Name of the book: Claire of the Sea Light

Author:  Edwidge Danticat 

Publisher:  Knopf 

What's the book about?  

Claire Limyè Lanmè--Claire of the Sea Light--is an enchanting child born into love and tragedy in a seaside town in Haiti. Claire's mother died in childbirth, and on each of her birthdays Claire is taken by her father, Nozias, to visit her mother's grave. Nozias wonders if he should give away his young daughter to a local shopkeeper who lost a child of her own, so he can give her a better life. 

But on the night of Claire's seventh birthday, when he makes the wrenching decision to do so, she disappears. As Nozias and others look for her, painful secrets and startling truths are unearthed among a host of men and women whose stories connect to Claire, her parents, and the town itself. 

Told with the piercing lyricism and economy of a fable, Claire of the Sea Light explores what it means to be a parent, child, neighbor, lover, and friend, while indelibly revealing the mysterious connections we share with the natural world and with one another, amid the magic and heartbreak of ordinary life. 

Why am I reading the book?  I am a fan of all things Danticat.

Quote from the book:

"Twenty miles south of the capital and crammed between a stretch of the most unpredictable waters of the Caribbean Sea and an eroded Haitian mountain range, the town had a flower-shaped perimeter that, from the mountains, looked like the unfurling petals of a massive tropical rose, so that the major road connecting the town to the sea became the stem and was called Avenue Pied ose or Stem Rose Avenue, with its many alleys and capillaries being called épine  or thorns."


Where to pre-order: http://www.amazon.com/Claire-Sea-Light-Edwidge-Danticat/dp/030727179X

EDWIDGE DANTICAT is the author of numerous books, including Brother, I'm Dying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a National Book Award finalist; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection; Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; and The Dew Breaker, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and winner of the inaugural Story Prize. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and elsewhere.

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1 Minute Book Review:The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson

Name of the book: The Chaos
Author: Nalo Hopkinson
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books 
What's the book about? "Sixteen-year-old Scotch struggles to fit in—at home she’s the perfect daughter, at school she’s provocatively sassy, and thanks to her mixed heritage, she doesn’t feel she belongs with the Caribbeans, whites, or blacks. And even more troubling, lately her skin is becoming covered in a sticky black substance that can’t be removed."
Why am I reading the book? Nalo Hopkinson is a gifted writer. She knows how to combine psychological insight with just the right detail to keep you reading. YA Lit is a new genre for her, and she is pitch perfect in capturing adolescent angst.
Quote from the book: 
"I tried not to listen to my own voice, to how off my accent sounded. Half Jamaica. Pretend Creole. If I didn’t watch myself. I turned “batty” into “baddy” too."

Where to buy: http://amzn.to/LialPR



Stephen Narain, Kelly Baker Josephs, and I are also discussing the novel @loveaxe: http://loveaxe.wordpress.com/
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The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

1 Minute Book Review: Lantana Strangling Ixora by Sasenarine Persaud

Name of the book: Lantana Strangling Ixora

Author: Sasenarine Persaud

Publisher: Tsar Books

What's the book about? "This collection is as much about love and people in and out of relationships as it is about origins and the process of estrangement. The lantana is a flower of South American origin, and the ixora of Asian origin. The lantana, a creeper that grows profusely, often engulfing other plants, provides a ready metaphor for the consciousness of the Americas overcoming that of India in the Americas—the mainstreaming and divesting of yoga from its Indian origins being the most visible manifestation."

Why am I reading the book? Coupled with his knowledge of classic Indian mythology, Persaud uses metaphors with a keen understanding of their limits as well as their ability to communicate complex emotional states. The tragedy of the Indian diaspora and the loss of vibrant histories are balanced only by his urbane wit and compassion.

Quote from the book:

There were times in the morning
we questioned the bloom
of the previous evening, watering
canna lilies, clearing the live oaks'
acorns from our white wrought iron bench.

Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Lantana-Strangling-Ixora-Sasenarine-Persaud/dp/1894770722

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The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

1 Minute Book Review: Kingston Noir

Name of the book: Kingston Noir
Author: Colin Channer, Editor
Publisher: Akashic Books
What's the book about? "Original stories by Marlon James, Kwame Dawes, Patricia Powell, Colin Channer, Marcia Douglas, Leone Ross, Kei Miller, Christopher John Farley, Ian Thomson, Thomas Glave, and Chris Abani. From Trench Town to Half Way Tree to Norbrook to Portmore and beyond, the stories of Kingston Noir shine light into the darkest corners of this fabled city."
Why am I reading the book? Kingston Noir introduces a new genre of writing into Jamaican literature, and I was interested in seeing how the writers would handle the classic noir plots with private investigators, plainclothes policemen, and victims of circumstance. I could say I was surprised, but I would be lying. Colin Channer is to be congratulated for bringing together these remarkable writers whose stories transcend the de rigueur cynicism of the genre to reveal  homicidal class conflicts, homophobia and hypocrisies in the badass capital of the world.
Quote from the book: 
"Yes, I am a fat man, but don't sorry for me. In Jamaica a woman like a big man. She can see he is prosperous, and that he can be in charge. People call you "boss" before they even know who you are. "Big man," "Boss," "Officer," "King," and my favorite, "My Lord." When a woman call you, "My Lord," that is a sweetness."
"My Lord" by Kwame Dawes
Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Noir-Akashic-Colin-Channer/dp/1617750743/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338385951&sr=1-1

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The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

1 Minute Book Review:Beyond Sangre Grande by Cyril Dabydeen

Name of the book: Beyond Sangre Grande

Author: Cyril Dabydeen (Editor)

Publisher: TSAR Publications (September 30, 2011)

What's the book about? "Beyond Sangre Grande "brings together a contemporary selection in English from some of the key writers now living in Canada, the US, and the UK, as well as various countries of the Caribbean."

Why am I reading the book? Beyond Sangre Grande extends the definition of Caribbean beyond a geographically enclosed space and recognizes the contributions of writers in the diaspora.

Quote from the book: Sangre Grande means "big blood," the image of a red river; "blood" as symbol evokes consanguinity and "red," courage.

Where to buy: http://tsarbooks.com/TSAR_BeyondSangreGrande.htm

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1 Minute Book Review:The Face of Water by Shara McCallum

Name of the book: The Face of Water

Author: Shara McCallum

Publisher: Peepal Tree Press 

What's the book about? "Shara McCallum has steadily created a rich body of poems that have mined the rich deposit of emotional and intellectual capital found in her background of multiple migrations, culturally and geographically. McCallum’s poems reflect her rooting in a Jamaican experience unique for her childhood in a Rastafarian home filled with reckless idealism, the potential for profound emotional pathology, and the grounding of old folks traditions. Her work has explored what it means to emerge from such a space and enter a new world of American landscapes and values."

Why am I reading the book? Shara McCallum always surprises me. Places that I've known or think I've known reenter my imagination through her poems with remarkable strangeness.

Quote from the book: 

For years, I flung salt
over my shoulder to shake

the old people's predictions:
All her life that gal going to suck salt.


From "The MadWoman in Middle Age"

Where to buy: http://www.peepaltreepress.com/single_book_display.asp?isbn=9781845231866&au_id=214

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1 Minute Book Review: Vessels by Andre Bagoo

Name of the book: Trick Vessels

Author: Andre Bagoo

Publisher: Shearsman Books

What's the book about? "Aptly titled are these poems: they are like vials without bottoms … held up, looked through, a universe can be discerned. They pour and continue to pour a mixture of guile and subterfuge, language that contradicts, and bargains for its own sanity, contents in volume denying the size of these trick vessels." — Mervyn Taylor

Why am I reading the book? Bagoo's juxtapositions usher the reader into Caribbean landscapes that are dreamlike and terrifying. Yet he controls the tone and scope so masterfully that the poems become experiences in themselves.

Quote from the book:

here
the strongest of bodies are dazed
beneath showers of diamond sprinkles
a thousand cold handcuffs
fall on black limbs
men clothed in blue
to mark them as 'lifers':

Where to buy: http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2012/bagoo.html

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If you enjoyed this post, check out my page on Amazon. I’d also be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook.

Follow @GeoffreyPhilp

Thank you!