Novel
The Hills Were Joyful Together
Roger Mais · 1953
Synopsis
In a Kingston yard, during the Second World War, several families share the tap, the kitchen and the misery: Surjue and his partner Rema, Shag, whose wife Euphemia cheats on him, Zephyr, the adolescents, the old people and the Sunday preachers. When Surjue, pushed by Flitters, lets himself be drawn into a burglary that goes wrong, he is arrested, and the novel follows him into the colonial prison while the yard goes on living.
Context
The novel appeared in London in 1953 from Jonathan Cape, shortly after its author had left Jamaica; it was followed the next year by a second novel on the same districts, then by a third in 1955. The author, who said he wanted to show the world the true Jamaica and the dreadful state of its labouring classes, drew on the yard stories of the Trinidadian C. L. R. James. The characters speak their own language, between English and Creole.
Who it is for
A novel in Jamaican English, little translated. The language mixes standard English and Creole, which is disorienting at first.
Prizes and reception
Reissued by Peepal Tree among the modern Caribbean classics, it appears on the 2022 jubilee list of seventy Commonwealth books.
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