Tag: post-colonial

Interview Kim Oliver, Literary Executor

On Wednesday 28 August, HopeRoad‘s new imprint, Small Axes, headed up by Serpent’s Tail founder Pete Ayrton, will celebrate by showcasing its launch title, The Nowhere Man, at the Nehru Centre in Mayfair. Kim Oliver, Kamala Markandaya’s daughter and literary executor, gave us an exclusive interview as a preview of the big night itself.

Kamala Markandaya’s pioneering novel The Nowhere Man, originally published in the 1970s, is reviewed HERE for The BookBlast Diary. It is a perfect read for this coming Notting Hill Carnival weekend.

Where were you born, and where did you grow up?
I was born in Lewisham in south London. Our family home was in Forest Hill, and that’s where I grew up – in the same house from birth through childhood and teenage years. I still see my earliest childhood friend who lived next door – we have been friends for more than sixty years! When we speak of it, and think back, we realise we were born into very much a post-war world, in the 1950s. It seems very drab, looking back. I remember the paintwork upstairs in our house being a dark-grey gloss. I love grey now for decorating, but that grey was so dark and dreary! There wasn’t the choice there is now. Continue reading Interview Kim Oliver, Literary Executor

Podcast Keith Anderson a.k.a. Bob Andy, reggae vocalist & songwriter

Keith Anderson known as Bob Andy talks about his life and times in a rare and exclusive interview.

Best known in the UK for the track recorded with Marcia Griffiths “Young, Gifted and Black” (1970), he is widely regarded as “one of reggae’s most influential songwriters,” Wikipedia.

Instead of bringing you the best reads for summer, BookBlast® is bringing you the best reggae for summer!

Continue reading Podcast Keith Anderson a.k.a. Bob Andy, reggae vocalist & songwriter

Review The Nowhere Man, Kamala Markandaya

“History is not the past, it is the present. We carry our history with us,” James Baldwin

Pete Ayrton, editor and publisher, who in 1986 founded Serpent’s Tail which he retired from in 2016, has teamed up with Rosemarie Hudson, the founder of HopeRoad (2010) to head up a new imprint: Small Axes.

The publication and promotion of literature from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean which challenges cultural stereotyping is becoming ever more urgent in the face of rising authoritarianism in the US, UK and across Europe.

The Small Axes list will focus on republishing post-colonial classics that helped to shape cultural shifts at the time of their printing and remain as relevant today as when they were first published.

“He lapsed into bitterness, as people tended to do now, despite some shreds of conviction that still remained that Britain was an honourable adversary. ‘Over three hundred lives,’ he said. ‘A hundred Indians for each Briton. That is their scale, the scale by which they value themselves and against which we are measured. That is what we are up against: not their greed, or their anger, nor land hunger, nor the need to trade, but their arrogance, the mentality that produces such policies and acts.’” Continue reading Review The Nowhere Man, Kamala Markandaya

Review What Happened to Us, Ian Holding

The bleakness and violence of life in modern Zimbabwe underpin this powerful coming-of-age tale, as thirteen-year-old Danny comes to understand critical truths about himself, his family and their milieu – and his country. His social observations and attempts to put to rest some of the painful questions surrounding the brutal event which lies at the heart of the novel offer an eye-opening look at life in another culture, and the tensions that lie behind the news headlines.

“I think what happened to us started the day I as out playing on the streets of our neighbourhood and accidentally pissed on the President’s face. I was a thirteen year old kid, skinny, lean-boned, full of shit.”

Continue reading Review What Happened to Us, Ian Holding

Interview Ian Holding, author

Where were you born, and where did you grow up?
I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and have lived here all my life.

What sorts of books were in your family home?
As a family we belonged to a small municipal library up the road and every second Saturday, religiously, we would go to the library and browse books, make selections. I think this is where my love of books and reading was fostered, really. At home I always remember there being a great deal of Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl and Gerald Durrell, amongst others; some would have been library books; some we owned (or where perhaps “former” library books!). Plus there was this whole other unreachable top shelf of alluring paperbacks I suspected at the time were not intended for the eyes of a young, inquisitive boy. When I was finally old enough to reach that shelf, its contents were actually, on the face of it, quite disappointing. Except there was a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, but I was such a pathetic loser as a kid I could never seem to find the bits that made it so notorious! Continue reading Interview Ian Holding, author

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