Growing up in Barbados, Austin Clarke was surrounded by women in the kitchen. Enveloped in the heavenly smells and smoke of their cooking, he listened to their talk about the food they were preparing. His mother; several aunts and numerous cousins always recited the steps they were taking as they cooked, and through them, he learned how to cook the traditional dishes of Barbados - food that has its origins in the days of slavery, of hardships and economic grief, when 'ingreasements' (ingredients) were scarce. The food was not just intended to 'full a hole in your stomach', according to Austin's mother, but to make you 'feel good', 'grow into a strong man' and give you 'big-big brains'. In Pig Tails 'n' Breadfruit, Austin Clarke shares his favourite recipes, including Smoked Ham Hocks with Lima Beans, Breadfruit Cou-Cou with Braising beef, Oxtails with Mushrooms, Pepperpot, and his renowned Chicken Austintacious. He reveals his method for choosing a 'nice piece o' pigtail from the brine barrel', demonstrates how to test an okra for freshness, outlines the essential characteristics of a real pork chop, and instructs us in the proper use of a cou-cou stick, that essential tool found in every Barbadian home. And all the while he reminisces about the food he ate as a boy and the rituals that went along with it. Whether it's a story about the village butcher whose qualifications were somewhat suspect, how to map a sure-fire route to a woman's heart through her stomach, or searching the streets of Durham, North Carolina, for fried chicken with Norman Mailer, Austin Clarke will make you hungry for 'hot cuisine' and the spirit of the island.

Austin Clarke's classic story of British colonial education is the subject of Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack. It is the story of a boy whose mother struggled against seemingly impossible odds to give her son the best available education. Generations of Barbadians, and West Indians, will identify with young Austin Clarke, from the absentee father to the challenges of a daily life in a society based on colour and class prejudice and a rigid set of customs and rules imported from England and imposed on Caribbean society. Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack is more than a memoir; it provides a rare in-depth look into the nature of the colonial condition, told with humour, wit and an authentic Bajan voice.

When Mary-Mathilda, one of the most respected women of the island of Bimshire (also known as Barbados) calls the police to confess to a crime, the result is a shattering all-night vigil that brings together elements of the island's African past and the tragic legacy of colonialism in one epic sweep.

Set in the West Indies in the period following World War II, "The Polished Hoe" -- an "Essence" bestseller and a "Washington Post Book World" Most Worthy Book of 2003 -- unravels over the course of twenty-four hours but spans the collective experience of a society characterized by slavery.

Austin Clarke's first book of poetry was published in 1917, his last in 1971. In a writing life spanning much of the twentieth century, Clarke created from his early, Yeatsian immersion in Gaelic myth and literature a poetry of passionate, idiosyncratic modernity, rooted in place and time, universal in its resonance. His is poetry, writes Christopher Ricks, of 'delicate and dancing interlacings' which is also 'simple as join-hands'.Clarke can be challengingly elliptical or as robust and earthy as folk tradition; he dares the terrors of the damaged soul. His later poems "Thomas Kinsella" described in "The Dual Tradition" as 'wickedly glittering narratives...poetry as pure entertainment, serious and successful'. The first "Collected Poems of Austin Clarke" appeared shortly after his death in 1974. Now, newly edited and corrected, with Clarke's original Notes restored, a bibliography and an illuminating introduction by Christopher Ricks, the poetry takes its place as one of the most compelling bodies of twentieth-century Irish poetry, available for a new generation of readers.

At the news of her son BJ's involvement in gang crime, IdoraMorrison, a maid at the local university, collapses in her basementapartment. For four days and nights she retreats into a vortex ofmemory, pain, and disappointment that becomes a riveting expose of her life as a Caribbean immigrant living abroad. Abandoned by her deadbeat husband, Bertram, and left alone to raise her son, Idora has done her best to survive against immense odds. But now that BJ has disappeared into a life of crime, she recoils from his loss and is unable to get out of bed, burdened by feelings of invisibility. Slowly, however, Idora summons the strength to investigate her son's troubles--and her own weaknesses--as she finds her way back into the light with a couragethat is both remarkable and unforgettable.

2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature — Longlisted 2016 RBC Taylor Prize — Longlisted The unforgettable memoir of Giller Prize–winning author and poet Austin Clarke, called “Canada’s first multicultural writer.� Austin Clarke is a distinguished and celebrated novelist and short-story writer. His works often centre around the immigrant experience, of which he writes with humour and compassion, happiness and sorrow. In ’Membering, Clarke shares his own experiences growing up in Barbados and moving to Toronto to attend university in 1955 before becoming a journalist. With vivid realism he describes Harlem of the ’60s, meeting and interviewing Malcolm X and writers Chinua Achebe and LeRoi Jones. Clarke went on to become a pioneering instructor of Afro-American Literature at Yale University and inspired a new generation of Afro-American writers. Clarke has been called Canada’s first multicultural writer. Here he eschews a traditional chronological order of events and takes the reader on a lyrical tour of his extraordinary life, interspersed with thought-provoking meditations on politics and race. Telling things as he ’members them.

Praised as "masterful" by the "New York Times" and "uncommonly talented" by "Publishers Weekly" and winner of the 1999 Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award, Austin Clarke has a distinguished reputation as one of the preeminent Caribbean writers of our time. In "Pig Tails 'n Breadfruit," he has created a tantalizing "culinary memoir" of his childhood in Barbados. Clarke describes how he learned traditional Bajan cooking--food with origins in the days of slavery, hardship, and economic grief--by listening to this mother, aunts, and cousins talking in the kitchen as they prepared each meal.

"Pig Tails 'n Breadfruit" is not a recipe book; rather, each chapter is devoted to a detailed description of the ritual surrounding the preparation of a particular native dish--Oxtails with Mushrooms, Smoked Ham Hocks with Lima Beans, or Breadfruit Cou-Cou with Braising Beef. Cooking here, as in Clarke's home, is based not on precise measurements, but on trial and error, taste and touch. As a result, the process becomes utterly sensual, and the author's exquisite language artfully translates sense into words, creating a rich and intoxicating personal memoir.

"The West Indians' primitive vitality and humanity in "Storm of Fortune" is rendered in ... some of the most delightful dialogue to see print in many a long year." -"Library Journal
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