Colin Grant, a BBC broadcaster, author and essayist, has an excerpt from his forthcoming book Bageye at the Wheel featured in the latest issue (#111, Going Back) of Granta literary magazine.
I've been following the publication for about 10 years, and this is one of the very few authors of Caribbean extraction writing on the Jamaican expatriate experience in the UK that I've encountered in their pages. So, bravo to Granta and, what took you so long?
The 13-page excerpt details the life, dreams and exploits of Bageye, as told from his son's point of view. Grant volleys back and forth between acute descriptive details and excellent Jamaican-tinged dialog making clear that life for the Windrush generation (post-WWII West Indian immigrants to the UK) was anything but sweet.
Here's Grant's bio
Colin Grant is a BBC radio producer and independent historian. His first book, Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey, was published in 2008 (Jonathan Cape/OUP). I&I: The Natural Mystics, a group biography of the original Wailers, will be published in 2011 (Jonathan Cape/Norton) and his memoir Bageye at the Wheel will be published in February 2012.
Read this excerpt from Grant's I&I: The Natural Mystics featuring an interview with Bunny Wailer on the dancehall concert Sting.
Also worthy of attention: Staceyann Chin's The Other Side of Paradise -- the Jamaican born, NY-based slam poet and TV host's memoir of her life in JA.
