Excerpt

I can think of no other Canadian author writing at the time who documented the West Indian immigrant's condition not only for West Indian immigrants themselves and their descendants, but also for white Canadians, so that they could see the racist and discriminatory manner in which those immigrants were treated.

Description

This collection, which explores the work of renown author Austin Clarke, includes essays by Michael Buchnor, George Elliott Clarke, Daniel Coleman, Camille Isaacs, Smaro Kamboureli, Linda MacKinley-Hay, Brinda J. Mehta, Sarah Phillips Casteel, Maggie Quirt, Victor J. Ramraj, Marquita R. Smith, and Batia Boe Stolar. Culminating with the international success of The Polished Hoe in 2002, Austin Clarke has published 11 novels, six short-story collections, four memoirs, and two non-fiction pieces. His many awards include several nominations for the Governor General's Award, the Rogers Communications Writers' Development Trust Prize for Fiction, the Commonwealth Prize, the Giller Prize, and the Martin Luther King Junior Award for Excellence in Writing. Clarke has also received a Toronto Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature (1992) and in 1998 he was invested with the Order of Canada.

Reviews

Austin Clarke has transcended the earlier achievements of his already illustrious career with The Polished Hoe by composing a Faulknerian evocation of the Caribbean voice.

- Trillium Prize Jury