A lively illustrated masterpiece, this is the gripping story of a natural disaster and the 13-year-old Kingston boy who lives to tell the tale. While holed up in their home, Joe Brown, his sister Mary, and their parents wait for the eye of the hurricane to pass over their home. Outside, a terrifying wind turns trees to splinters, darkness swallows the land, and torrential rains lash the roof. Celebrating Jamaica's resilience in the face of natural disasters, this account follows the family as they huddle, worry, wait, and hope--together.

A brave and pioneering treatment of sexual identity in Caribbean literature, this novel, first published in 1960, follows the fortunes of Johnnie Sobert, a Jamaican exile who works in London at a club that caters to black American servicemen. In flight from his dominant, possessive mother, he immerses himself in the bohemian Soho scene and adopts a wisecracking persona as a cover for his deep-seated insecurities. Adding to Johnnie's confusion is the fact that when he is not at work, he navigates a completely different life in Hempstead, where he lives in a bedsitter and carries on an...