NOW IT'S your turn. Is there a Jamaican story that has touched you? Tell us how, in 50 words or less. (Please note, entries longer than the 50-word limit will be automatically disqualified.) Send, by Monday, August 4, to Jamaican stories at lifestyle@gleanerjm.com; fax, 922-6223 or 948-1804; or mail to Lifestyle, Gleaner Company, 7 North Street, Kingston. Books courtesy of Carlong. Available at bookstores islandwide.
Escape to Last Man Peak
Author: Jean D'Costa
Publisher:Longman, distributed for the Caribbean
Distributor: Carlong Publishers (Caribbean) Ltd.
SUMMARY:
"In two weeks we should have had Christmas, if the sickness had not come."
Ten children are left to fend for themselves when the matron of their orphanage dies during the pneumonia epidemic that is raging through Jamaica. Afraid that they will be made to work in a labour camp, they decide to escape to the other side of the island. The perilous journey to Last Man Peak, with only their wits and courage to help them, was to change their lives forever.
Sixty-Five
Author: V.S. Reid
Publisher:Longman, distributed for the Caribbean
Distributor: Carlong Publishers (Caribbean) Ltd.
SUMMARY:
"He said I should know the road we had come if I would march surely forward."
So Japheth, a boy of 12, with 'sharp' black eyes' that missed nothing, learned of the past from Grandpa Joe, and intended to witness and be part of all he could of history in the making.
'Sixty Five' is an account of the revolt led by Deacon Paul Bogle in Morant Bay, Jamaica, in October 1865. Japheth Murray lives through the revolt at the side of his grandfather, formerly a soldier with the West India Regiment, who persistently tries to give Deacon Bogle good military advice. And Japheth's father stays with Deacon Bogle till the last stand against the English soldiers up in the hills.
V.S. Reid has shown that the best way to learn of the past and from the past is through those closest to you. He makes history come alive.
In The Castle of My Skin
Author: George Lamming
Publisher:Longman, distributed for the Caribbean
Distributor: Carlong Publishers (Caribbean) Ltd.
SUMMARY:
A classic first novel about growing up in 'Little England', colonial Barbados. It is a brilliant, sensitive record of the evolving consciousness of a poor village boy, at a time of rapid social change.
The Jumbie Bird
Author: Ismith Khan
Publisher:Longman, distributed for the Caribbean
Distributor: Carlong Publishers (Caribbean) Ltd.
SUMMARY:
The tragic story of an East Indian family stranded in Trinidad, betrayed by the authorities and discarded by Mother India.
No one can escape the sinister call of the Jumbie bird, a ghostly message of death. It haunts the childhood world of Jamini: his fierce, proud grandfather, Kale Khan, a born fighter who dreams of returning to India; his father, a struggling jeweller; and the doomed relationship with his childhood sweetheart, Lakshmi.
The Jumbie bird returns, a symbolic and fearful omen, as Kale Khan prepares for his final battle.
Summer Lightning and other stories
Author: Olive Senior
Publisher:Longman, distributed for the Caribbean
Distributor: Carlong Publishers (Caribbean) Ltd.
SUMMARY:
Her setting is rural Jamaica; her heroes are the naive and the vulnerable who bring to life with power and realism issues such as snobbery, ambition, jealousy, faith and love.
Written in vivid, colourful detail, these rich, compelling stories recreate with sensitivity and with a whole range of emotions, from childhood hope to brooding melancholy. Each is told with an affectionate and poignant perception of you and I at our best and worst. Gently we are led, laughing, crying, but always enjoying.
