The dead yard
Subtitle: tales of modern Jamaica
By: Ian Thomson
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 2009
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 370
ISBN-13: 9780571227617
Subjects: Politics and government; Social conditions; Moral conditions; History; Description and travel
Description: "Jamaica used to the source of much of Britain's wealth, an island where slaves grew sugar and the money flowed out in vast quantities. It was a tropical paradise for the planters, a Babylonian exile for the Africans shipped to the Caribbean. Since independence in 1962, it has gradually become associated with a new kind of hell, a society where extreme violence has become ordinary and gangs control the areas where most Jamaicans live. Ian Thomson's brave new book explores a country of lost promise, a country that most older Jamaicans in Britain cannot recognise as their own. Once a beacon of optimistic third world politics, the island is now sunk in corruption, hopelessness and drug wars. Jamaica's music was once the lilting anthem of idealists everywhere; now it is a repetitive glorification of homophobia and violence"--Global Books in Print.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 350-356) and index.