Banjo

Claude McKay’s picaresque of 1920s Marseille, a paean to Black diaspora

A Penguin Classic

On the shores of the Vieux Port of Marseille, Lincoln Agrippa Daily, better known as “Banjo,” panhandles alongside friends and fellow migrants, busking at bars and escaping drunken scrums, in search of money, wine, camaraderie, and a good time. As Banjo and the “beach boys” drift through the dives of “The Ditch,” they reflect on race, class, labor, and the challenges of living as working-class, Black men in cities and countries to which they are anathema. When the itinerant writer Ray joins the group, Banjo begins to explore the existential implications of being Black in a world that moves—in its contempt, indifference, and defiance—to the “sweet jazzing of life.” Published a year after Claude McKay’s bestselling Home to Harlem, Banjo transports readers to the gritty, vivacious streets of 1920s Marseille and offers timeless meditations on Black transnational solidarity, friendship, music, and belonging.

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