View From Mount Diablo: An Annotated Edition

A verse-novel that won the Jamaican National

Literary Award in 2001, View from Mount Diablo

explores the transformation of Jamaica from a

sleepy colonial society to a post-colonial nation.

Class and racial privilege and the resentments they

provoke underscore both turmoil in wider society

and the relationships at the heart of the narrative,

between Adam Cole, a dreamy white boy driven by personal tragedy to crusading journalism, squint-eyed Nellie Simpson, once a servant, then a political enforcer, and stuttering Nathan, gardener and groom turned cocaine baron. Beyond this trio is a dazzling array of real and fictitious characters.

The annotated edition by John Lennard, Professor of

British and American Literature at UWI–Mona in

Kingston, allows the full scope of the verse-novel to

emerge for readers unfamiliar with Jamaican history

since the 1930s.