Search results for ""Author Earl Lovelace""

Walter Castle is festering with dissatisfactions in the Laventille slum in Port of Spain. As the prospect of promotion recedes and the threat of crime and lawless and rootless youth become ever more insupportable, he begins to think of going back to the village community he grew up in. But as Lovelace shows in a series of flashbacks, the force of nostalgia is not supported by actual memory, though Walter constantly tries to deceive himself that it is. Set in a 'present' of 1956 when political change was coming to Trinidad, once Walter abandons the dream of return, he is forced to choose between becoming one of the drones who passes through life without making any mark on it, or standing up for himself in a way that only makes sense if he is engaged with others.When this, Earl Lovelace's first and politically most explicit novel, was first published in 1965, it could be seen as an astringent critique of the top-down authoritarianism of nationalist politics. Its emphasis on a world where decent people like Walter Castle feel that crime and violence is destroying the social body appears, 45 years later, to be uncomfortably contemporary.Earl Lovelace was born in 13 July 1935. He is a Trinidadian novelist, journalist, playwright, and short story writer.

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In the town of Cascadu, Trinidad, the 1970 Black Power rebellion has failed. Sonnyboy, hapless and luckless, is desperate to be recognised as part of the rebellion and forces the uninterested police to arrest him. KingKala, a singer, returns from detention and is sidelined in the calypso tent, his music dated and unfashionable. They now hope to make their name in the movie that is being shot on the island - but that too does not end as expected.And so we follow the townsfolk through their experiments in music, politics, religion and love; as, in their day-to-day adventures - be it a game of cricket, the short life of a corner shop or a miracle at a funeral - they begin to see more clearly what their community has to offer for its liberation. Sad and uplifting, humorous but never mocking, Is Just a Movie is a warm, gentle novel about small moments of magic in ordinary life.

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'A landmark, not in the West Indian, but in the contemporary novel.' C. L. R. James'First-class talent.' The VoiceTrinidad, 1970s. Calvary Hill - poverty stricken and rubbish-strewn ­­- is home to a community of people who come together during the joyful yearly town Carnival, becoming larger-than-life versions of themselves. But when it ends, and the strains of day-to-day life grow large, what happens to the peoples' hopes, and the feeling that 'all o' we is one'?With an unforgettable cast of characters, The Dragon Can't Dance is a stunning, classic novel of the desire for identity and belonging, alongside the legacies of a colonial past.

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Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize'An amazingly vivid and joyful novel.' The Times'Vital, life-enhancing.' Time OutAlford, the youngest son of a poor farm worker, has risen above his class to become a schoolteacher. He, like many young people in Trinidad, dreams of heading to England for a better life. Idealistic and determined, Alford travels to the capital to campaign for his community and, suddenly a local hero, it seems anything is possible. Or is it? Salt tells the story of a country through an unforgettable cast of characters, striving with wit and passion to make sense of life in an evolving homeland.

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'Each word is a revelation.' The Times'Earl Lovelace is the real stuff, a proper writer.' James KelmanIn the sleepy village of Kumuca, Trinidad, change happens slowly. Yet to move with the times and expand the horizons of the villagers, the elders elect to build a school and bring in a schoolmaster with great celebration. The warnings of a local priest - that the quest for education will bring more to the village than they expect - are ignored. But the villagers will learn, all too cruelly, that progress can mean the destruction of what they know and love.

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