Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

On Thursday evening Horane Smith invited all to 'Come Listen To Mi Stories' at the Tom Redcam Library's Reading Room, but he made it clear that his intentions were to make inroads beyond a single road in St. Andrew.

Although the Canadian-based Jamaican was officially introducing his latest book, Dawn at Lover's Leap, to Jamaica, he was also introducing himself. Hence, he took the opportunity to read from not only Dawn at Lover's Leap but also his other books, including Underground to Freedom, Port Royal, Reggae Silver and his first book, Lover's Leap: Based on a Jamaican Legend, to which the latest one is a sequel.

Smith noted that he has taken his work to international audiences, reading at universities and book fairs, but "my countrymen should be told also, in live form, of this book."

He said that when he wrote Lover's Leap within three months in 1995 he had intended to write only one book. However, public response as well as the encouragement of a famous author whose widow said one of his deathbed regrets was that he would not be around to see the success four authors, among them Smith, would have.

Four books and 11 years later comes Dawn at Lover's Leap, the continuation of that first book. "I decided to expand the role of the character Anita and write it in such a way that it would lead up to the Morant Bay Rebellion," Smith said. He began to read from where Anita is at Lover's Leap in St. Elizabeth, mourning for her then slave lover Jerome Scott who has been dead for 25 years. "For Anita it was joy and grief whenever she came there to recollect her memories," Smith read to the small audience in the library's reading room. The sequel also introduces Andrew, Anita and Jerome's son. After mention of the possibility of a trilogy, Smith said "it is with this that I launch Lover's Leap."

It was the second of his books that Smith read from that night, as he started with an excerpt from Port Royal; from Underground To Freedom, which is "about the 200,000 American slaves who sought freedom in Canada" and from Reggae Silver, of which Smith said, "it is a book that is close to my heart. It is my first contemporary book. I have music in my bones."

Story behind the name

The excerpt he read explained the name of the book and its main character at a moment when he was about to face a parole board after a long stretch in prison. He was named Reggie at birth, but was soon called Reggae because he imitated singers. "My father, he joked that if one of my records did not go gold it would go silver. From that day, the name Reggae Silver stuck to me like glue!" Smith said, to end the readings on an emphatic note.