The Dragon Can't Dance

Description

Described as 'a landmark, not in the West Indian, but in the contemporary novel' by C.L.R. James, Earl Lovelace's Caribbean classic tells the story of Calvary Hill - poverty stricken, pot-holed and garbage-strewn - where the slum shacks 'leap out of the red dirt and stone, thin like smoke, fragile like kite paper, balancing on their rickety pillars as broomsticks on the edge of a juggler's nose'. The Dragon Can't Dance is a remarkable canvas of shanty-town life in which Lovelace's intimate knowledge of rural Trinidad and the Carnival as a sustaining cultural tradition are brilliantly brought to life.

Earl Lovelace was born in Toco, Trinidad, and has spent most of his life on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. He has been a journalist, been Writer-in-Residence at the University of the West Indies and at universities in the United States and Britain, and has given lectures, readings and participated in conferences internationally.His books have been translated into German, Dutch, French and Hungarian, and his short stories have been widely anthologized. His books include While Gods Are Falling, winner of the BP Independence Award, the Caribbean classic The Dragon Can't Dance, and Salt, which won the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize.