WINNER OF THE OCM BOCAS PRIZE FOR CARIBBEAN LITERATURE SHORTLISTED FOR THE
RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE, THE GREEN CARNATION PRIZE, and the HISTORICAL WRITERS
AWARD 'Miller's storytelling is superb' SUNDAY TIMES One April day in
Augustown, Jamaica. Ma Taffy, old and blind, sits in her usual spot on the
veranda. No matter how the world tilts around her, come hurricane or riot,
she knows everything that goes on in this small community. Which is why,
when her six-year-old nephew returns home from school with his dreadlocks
shorn, she realises that trouble won't be far behind. And so she tells him
the story of Alexander Bedward, the flying preacherman. She remembers what
happened to the Rastaman and his helper, Bongo Moody; she thinks of Soft-
Paw, the leader of the Angola gang, and what lies beneath her house. For
trouble is brewing once more among the ramshackle lanes of Augustown, and
as Ma Taffy knows, each day contains much more than its own hours, or
minutes, or seconds. In fact, each day contains all of history...