Time Come
Selected Prose
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
‘Key to understanding Black British history’ – The Sunday Times
‘Sharp and still relevant’ – Zadie Smith
One of the great poets of modern times, and a deeply respected political and cultural activist and social critic, Linton Kwesi Johnson is also a prolific writer of non-fiction. In Time Come, he selects some of his most powerful prose – book and music reviews published in newspapers and magazines, lectures, obituaries and speeches – for the first time. Written over many decades, these works draw on Johnson’s own Jamaican roots and on Caribbean history to explore the politics of race that continue to inform the Black British experience.
Ranging from reflections on the place of music in Caribbean and Black British culture as a creative, defiant response to oppression, to penetrating appraisals of novels, films, poems and plays, and including warm tributes paid to the activists and artists who inspired him to contribute to the struggle for racial equality and social justice, Time Come is a panorama of an exceptional life. Venturing into memoir, it underscores Johnson’s enduring importance in Britain’s cultural history and reminds us of his brilliant, unparalleled legacy.
With an introduction by Paul Gilroy, author of There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack.
‘A mosaic of wise, urgent and moving pieces’ – Kit de Waal
‘As necessary as ever’ – The Observer
‘A book to be savoured and re-read’ – Derek Owusu
‘An outstanding collection’ – Caryl Phillips
‘A necessary book from a writer who continues to inspire’ – Yomi Sode
‘Incisive, engaging, fearless’ – Gary Younge
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British-Jamaican poet Johnson (Mi Revalueshanary Fren) presents a thoughtful anthology of previously published essays, most focusing on art, Caribbean history, and the minutiae of the Black British experience. The book is divided into five sections, comprising pieces written from 1975 to 2021 that ran in outlets including the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, and Race Today. Part one is dedicated to Johnson's music writing, most of which examines how the reggae of Bob Marley, the Wailers, and others coalesced to form "the spiritual expression of the historical experience of the Afro-Jamaican." Part two outlines how Johnson found his literary voice with the drumming group Rasta Love, with whom he explored Jamaican Creole as a "deejay turned poet," overdubbing phrases onto the background rhythms of various songs. Elsewhere, Johnson shares that he turned to poetry "as a visceral need to creatively articulate the experiences of the black youth of my generation, coming of age in a racist society," after reading W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, and speaks to how racial uprisings in the U.K. throughout the 1980s "unleashed a new wave of black creativity in the arts." Throughout, Johnson remains lively, involving company, though certain sections—his writing on politics, in particular—shine brighter than others. This is a welcome addition to a sterling literary catalog.
