Events' Realm

Let's gather as Marcia Douglas shares her most recent work 'The Maervelous Equations of the Dread' with us. We'll sip coffee, tea or water and nibble a little something sweet from the cafe, soak up di words an have a good chat.

Marcia
Marcia Douglas was born in the U.K. and grew up in Jamaica. She is the author of the novels, The Marvellous Equations of the Dread: a Novel in Bass Riddim (2016), Madam Fate (1999) and Notes from a Writer's Book of Cures and Spells (2005) as well as a collection of poetry, Electricity Comes to Cocoa Bottom (1999).

Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies internationally, including Edexcel Anthology for English Language/London Examinations IGCSE, The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse, The Forward Book of Poetry, Sisters of Caliban: Contemporary Women Poets of the Caribbean, Cultural Activism: Poetic Voices, Political Voices, Kingston Noir, Jubilation! Poems Celebrating 50 Years of Jamaican Independence, Mojo: Conjure Stories, Whispers from Under the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction, Caribbean Erotic: Poetry, Prose, Essays, The Art of Friction: Where (Non) Fictions Come Together, and Home: An Imagined Landscape.

Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a U.K. Poetry Book Society Recommendation. In addition to writing, she performs a one-woman show, Natural Herstory, and teaches at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

'The Marvelous Equations of the Dread'
The Marvellous Equations of the Dread tells the twin stories of Jamaica’s nihilistic violence and its wondrously creative humanity and does truthful justice to both. It takes place in the worlds of the living and in the vivid afterlife of the dead, spanning Kingston ghettoes and Emperor Haile Selassie's palace in Addis Ababa.

At its heart are the human stories of deaf Leenah, who with her mother and daughter tells a powerful woman version of events; the relationship between Fall-down (a Kingston madman and fallen angel) and Delroy, an orphaned street-boy; and the meetings in the clock tower at Half Way Tree between Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey.

Not least of the novel's marvellous equations are the dread revenants who encourage the living to take responsibility for the future of the nation.

Written with an ear to music, this novel is a bass track of ancestral memory and the inexorable search for freedom.

Events at Bookophilia, Jamaica

In the evening

Author Meet&Greet: Marcia Douglas