Minty Alley
| Author | C. L. R. James |
|---|---|
| Country | Trinidad and Tobago |
| Publisher | Secker & Warburg |
|
Publication date
|
1936 |
Minty Alley is a groundbreaking novel written by Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James in the late 1920s, and published by Secker & Warburg in 1936, as West Indian literature was starting to flourish. It was the first novel by a black West Indian to be published in England.
According to Christian Høgsbjerg, James later noted: "‘the basic constituent of my political activity and outlook’ was already set out in ‘the “human” aspect’ of Minty Alley, the unpublished novel he wrote in 1928 about the working people of one ‘barrack-yard’ he stayed in that summer." James arrived in the United Kingdom in 1932, intent on a career as a writer and bearing the manuscript of Minty Alley, and found employment writing about cricket for the Manchester Guardian. He soon became swept up in politics, writing books about the Bolshevik and Haitian revolutions, leaving his literary ambitions behind. He died in London in 1989.
A dramatisation of Minty Alley, by Margaret Busby and produced by Pam Fraser Solomon (with a cast that included Geff Francis, Vivienne Rochester and Burt Caesar), was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998, winning a Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) "Race in the Media Award" in 1999.
The book opens with Mr. Haynes deciding to rent part of a house situated nearby on the title street—a very short alley. His mother has died, and he is trying to make the best out of an otherwise dull life. Figuring out how to pay for the house, he arrives there the following day, meeting Maisie and her aunt, Mrs. Rouse, who has a small room to let. Haynes agrees to use it after hearing of the conditions and the price—$2.50.
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