Minty Alley
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Minty Alley
University Press of Mississippi, 1997
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
First published: London : Secker & Warburg, 1936
Description and Table of Contents
Description
First published in London in 1939, Minty Alley is now made available for the first time to American readers. In the pages of this work C. L. R. James is both an imaginative political theorist and a sensitive commentator on the West Indian social and cultural scene.
James's novel has been acclaimed as ""a ground-breaking example of regional social realism"" and as ""a major forerunner of the Caribbean literary movements in English."" Many of James's readers believe that it is not possible fully to comprehend Caribbean literary art in English without first reading Minty Alley. In the interactions of the characters of Maisie, Haynes, Mrs. Rouse, and Benoit, James discerns new forms of society rooted in the oldest of desires and aspirations. In the everyday language of the unforgettable dialogues in the novel James reveals new modes of human relationships.
Haynes, a young middle-class lodger at No. 2 Minty Alley, becomes both confidant and judge as he examines the other inhabitants at this address. From his experiences he realizes the mutually impoverishing alienation of the educated West Indian from the mainstream. Through Haynes's vivid narration James presents the rich cultural life on Minty Alley. Haynes, an outsider among people of lower class, knows his fellow lodgers only as they have revealed themselves to him through their speech and actions, yet each has a mysterious inner life.
Frequently reprinted in the United Kingdom, Minty Alley at last reaches the United States so that American readers can learn what much of the rest of the English-speaking world has long known, that before such masterworks as The Black Jacobins, World Revolution, and Beyond a Boundary, C. L. R. James had already made his mark as one of the foremost of West Indian novelists.
Copublished with New Beacon Books Ltd.
C. L. R. James (1901-1989) was a leading figure in the Pan-African movement. He has been called the most distinguished West Indian of modern times.
Not for sale in the U. K. and European Common Market countries
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