Marlon James

Hidden Idiom

Hidden Idiom

Around this time last year, Jamaica held its first Pride parade. The whole thing took place in the country’s capital. There’s a smog that settles over Kingston in the afternoon, like this funk that pedestrians and motorists and bike-riders can’t avoid.

The Contemporary Epic
|

The Contemporary Epic

  I promised you Lonesome Dove, but we’re going to start with Derek Walcott’s Omeros, because this is a family of contemporary epics. Giant, sprawling books, full of gods and families, generations and cycles, books that seem like they go on forever and seem like they should. And where better to begin than a retelling…