ABOUT THE BOOK
Marshall Sarjeant is born at the beginning of the 20th century in Paradise, Jamaica. As a young man, he is entrusted with a mythical quest to overcome a curse that has been put on his family. He must do this by returning to Africa from where family members were brought as slaves.
Marshall’s journey is a long, taking him first to wartime Liverpool and then, London where he marries and mixes with a clubland crowd of gamblers, musicians and politicians. In Africa, he finds a continent in the turbulent throes of attempting to escape a colonial past. Returning to Paradise, Marshall’s life turns full circle in his epic mission to defeat the duppy, or ghost that started him on his voyage.
In Duppy Conqueror, first published in 1998, Ferdinand Dennis has created a powerful narrative of the Afro-Caribbean experience in which the personal and the political seamlessly collide.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
FERDINAND DENNIS was born in 1956 in Kingston, Jamaica. In 1964, he came to London where he grew up. He has taught creative writing and is the author of the novels, The Sleepless Summer and The Last Blues Dance . His non-fiction includes Back to Africa: A Journey and Behind the Frontlines ; Journey into Afro-Britain for which he was awarded the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize. Ferdinand Dennis lives in North London.
Author photo © Francis Ware
REVIEWS
‘ Duppy Conqueror brims with humour and low comedy. It is a pleasing change from the wilfully ponderous treatment of historical memory in much contemporary post-colonial fiction’ TLS
‘This is a novel packed to the brim with layers of symbolism, individual and cultural memories, and fascinating historical stories. Reading it once just won’t be enough’ INDEPENDENT
‘Duppy Conqueror is extremely readable, and through the imagination of Dennis we are shown a history of the 20th century from the Afro-Caribbean perspective. A unique novel about discovering roots, republished by HopeRoad Publishing, which specialises in fiction and non-fiction from transcultural perspectives.’ Robert Greer, IDLER
‘Full of agency and accomplishment, his story is Dickensian in its description of a life backlit by a century’s ills. Dennis weaves together a redolent symbolism and an expansive cast of characters to dramatise the legacy of slavery into a satisfying and inspiring story’ NEON MAGAZINE
'Nothing less than a history of the twentieth-century, seen through Afro-Caribbean spectacles’ GUARDIAN
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