Dog-Heart

Told in two voices, educated Jamaican English and the nation-language of the people, this dramatic novel tells the story of a well-meaning, middle-class woman and a young boy from the ghetto whom she desperately wants to help. Alternating between the perspectives of the woman and the boy, the story engages with issues of race and class, examines the complexities of relationships between people of very different backgrounds, and explores the difficulties faced by individuals seeking to bring about social change through their own actions. The dramatic climax and tragic choices made grow from the gulf of incomprehension between middle-class and poor Jamaicans and provide penetrating insights into the roots of violence in impoverished communities.

Diana McCaulay is an award winning Jamaican writer and environmental activist. Between 1994 and 2002, she wrote an acclaimed opinion column for Jamaica's main daily newspaper, The Gleaner, and a selection of these columns was released as a book in September 2012 as Writing Jamaica: People, Places, Struggles . She has written two novels, Dog-Heart (2010) and Huracan (2012), both published by Peepal Tree Press in the UK, and she is the 2012 Caribbean regional winner of the Commonwealth short story prize, for her story The Dolphin Catcher. Dog-Heart was shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize for International Writing, the Guyana Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Award.


Genre: General Fiction