20th century
21st century
A01=Claude McKay
A01=Winston James
alphabet
american history
american literature
americana
anthology
anthropology
Author_Claude McKay
Author_Winston James
beats
biography
caribbean
Category=DSBH
Category=DSC
Category=GTM
classic
collected poems
collection
crime
drugs
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
essay
essays
feminism
gender
gift books
gift ideas
haiti
health
journalism
literary fiction
modern
nature
penguin modern classics
personal growth
philosophy
poem
poem a day
poem books
poems
poetry
poetry book
poetry books
poetry collection
psychology
race
reference
russian
school
short stories
spirituality
theology
translation
wanderlust
work
writing
Product details
- ISBN 9781859847404
- Weight: 365g
- Dimensions: 147 x 201mm
- Publication Date: 17 Mar 2001
- Publisher: Verso Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Claude McKay remains one of the most influential intellectuals of the African Diaspora. Best remembered for his extraordinary poetry, his achievement in verse has been widely analyzed and praised. Yet in the welter of discussion about McKay, little has been said about his early writing in Jamaican. Two collections from the period, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, are more known about than known, and his poems for the Jamaican press, most of which have never been anthologized, are rarely studied.
In A Fierce Hatred of Injustice, Winston James elegantly redresses this omission. Through a subtle and detailed consideration of McKay's formative years on the island, James reviews the themes and politics of poetry which McKay began writing at the age of ten. Above all he focuses on the poet's pioneering use of Jamaican creole revealing the way in which this laid a foundation for subsequent work by writers such as Louise Bennett, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Michael Smith. The volume concludes with a comprehensive anthology of the early poems together with a comic sketch about Jamaican peasant life by McKay and an autobiographical essay on his experiences in the Kingston police force.
In A Fierce Hatred of Injustice, Winston James elegantly redresses this omission. Through a subtle and detailed consideration of McKay's formative years on the island, James reviews the themes and politics of poetry which McKay began writing at the age of ten. Above all he focuses on the poet's pioneering use of Jamaican creole revealing the way in which this laid a foundation for subsequent work by writers such as Louise Bennett, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Michael Smith. The volume concludes with a comprehensive anthology of the early poems together with a comic sketch about Jamaican peasant life by McKay and an autobiographical essay on his experiences in the Kingston police force.
Winston James is Professor of History at University of California Irvine.
Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance and author of numerous works.
Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance and author of numerous works.
