Andrew Salkey is one of the most prolific and versatile of West Indian writers. He has written over twenty books, including novels for adults, novels for children, collections of short stories, books of poems, and travel-cum-political journals. Furthermore, as an editor he has done much to promote and make available West Indian writing both to adults and young people in no fewer than eight anthologies of Caribbean stories, poems, essays, and folktales. He was also a founding editor of the lively, if sporadic, Caribbean journal Savacou.

Felix Andrew Alexander Salkey was born on 30 January 1928 in Colón, Panama, to Jamaican parents, Andrew Alexander Salkey, a businessman, and Linda Marshall Salkey. At the age of two Salkey was sent to Jamaica, where he was raised by his grandmother and his mother. His father continued to work in Panama, and the two never met until Salkey was a grown...