Exiles at Home

Beginning around the middle of the last century when, after centuries of colonization, Jamaica began moving to cut its ties to England, many Jamaicans, especially those of the old establishment, became nervous about the island's future and their place in a newly constituted sovereign state. During two decades following Independence, their fears-real or imagined-were either realized or seemed about to be. In either case, the alternative for them was to leave or prepare to leave the island, with the hope of finding a continuation of their former lives abroad. A generation of them did, some with more difficulty than others, but until they departed Jamaica, they were exiles at home.

The five pieces in this book are fictional stories. The first four are set in Jamaica; the fifth, in anticipation of the main theme, is set in England.