Andrew Salkey (Felix Andrew Alexander Salkey) Biography

Jamaican novelist and poet, born in Colon, Panama, educated at St George's College in Jamaica, and the University of London. His first novel, A Quality of Violence (1959), set in rural Jamaica during the drought of 1900, focuses on the desperately violent rituals of the Pocomania cult. Subsequent novels featured alienated middle-class protagonists who asserted themselves through violent personal confrontations, predatory sexuality, and destructive manœuvres for power, which exposed the social and racial tensions in Jamaica: they include Escape to an Autumn Pavement (1960), The Late Emancipation of Jerry Stover (1968), The Adventures of Catullus Kelly (1969), and Come Home, Malcolm Heartland (1976). Anancy's Score (1973) is a collection of short stories featuring a modern, urban version of the folkloric spider-trickster; Anancy reappears in One (1985), a political fable satirizing Guyanese politics; in Anancy Traveller (1992), more short stories; and in Brother Anancy (1993), stories for children. Jamaica (1973), a long impassioned narrative poem, argues in favour of revolutionary change. As well as volumes of verse, including In the Hills where Her Dreams Live (1979) and Away (1980), Salkey has written stimulating and controversial travel books such as Havana Journal (1971) and Georgetown Journal: A Caribbean Writer's Journey from London via Port of Spain to Georgetown, Guyana, 1970 (1972), and children's books.