View from Mount Diablo

A verse-novel that won the Jamaican National Literary Award in 2001, View from Mount Diablo explores the transformation of Jamaica from a sleepy colonial society to a post-colonial nation. Class and racial privilege and the resentments they provoke underscore both turmoil in wider society and the relationships at the heart of the narrative, between Adam Cole, a dreamy white boy driven by personal tragedy to crusading journalism, squint-eyed Nellie Simpson, once a servant, then a political enforcer, and stuttering Nathan, gardener and groom turned cocaine baron. Beyond this trio is a dazzling array of real and fictitious characters. The annotated edition by John Lennard, Professor of British and American Literature at UWI–Mona in Kingston, allows the full scope of the verse-novel to emerge for readers unfamiliar with Jamaican history since the 1930s.