Duppy Conqueror - Tapa dura

‘Dennis writes with abandoned, poetic relish and a contagious affection: he is a writer to watch’
Sunday Telegraph

‘The skill the author brings to his portrayal of character is matched by the vivid realism with which he depicts place’
The Times

An epic tale of one man’s quest to fulfil a mission, which tells the story of this century from a particular Afro-Caribbean point of view.

Marshall Sergeant is born in 1900. He survives many tests on his courage and love and is initiated into the cult of Africa and his ancestry, learning the legend of looted gold buried by the Spanish forced to flee the island in 1655, and guarded by the spirit or duppy of an African ritually slain. When Marshall’s great-great-grandmother, Nana, dies, her spirit chooses Marshall to carry her ashes to Africa. His journey begins in Harlem, New York, where he becomes a leading figure in the Universal African Association to repatriate negroes to Africa. The organization flounders on corruption and fraud. Eventually released from prison, a disillusioned Marshall marries Estelle Savage; then he is conscripted in the Second World War, injured in France and transferred to London. Here he sets up a nightclub which becomes the meeting place for prominent anti-colonial leaders. Marshall helps to campaign for the release of Kojo Dojokun, a student prince, who on his release is elected prime minister of the first Independent African State. Almost forty years after setting out, Marshall finally gets to Africa as cultural adviser in Kojo’s government. Kojo becomes corrupted by power and a coup overthrows him. Marshall’s son by Estelle comes to Africa having been exiled for his involvement in Black Power in the States. Reconciled with his son but disillusioned by Africa, Marshall, aged 85, returns to Jamaica, finds the legendary ‘map’ to the buried treasure and embarks on finding it. What he finds is death, and a sort of peace.

Ostensibly about one man’s life, Duppy Conqueror is ultimately about the dreams, passions and struggles of individuals caught up in the flux of twentieth-century history. It is a major work by a highly regarded thinker and one of the best black writers of our time.