Augustown

One April day in Augustown, Jamaica. Ma Taffy, old and blind, sits in her usual spot on the veranda. No matter how the world tilts around her, come hurricane or riot, she knows everything that goes on in this small community. Which is why, when her six-year-old nephew returns home from school with his dreadlocks shorn, she realises that trouble won’t be far behind. And so she tells him the story of Alexander Bedward, the flying preacherman. She remembers what happened to the Rastaman and his helper, Bongo Moody; she thinks of Soft-Paw, the leader of the Angola gang and what lies beneath her house. For trouble is brewing once more among the ramshackle lanes of Augustown and as Ma Taffy knows, each day contains much more than its own hours or minutes or seconds. In fact, each day contains all of history…

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Kei Miller

Kei Miller is the author of three novels, several poetry collections, and Fear of Stones and Other Stories, which was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book. In 2014, he won the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection for The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion. Born in Jamaica, he lives in London and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

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