'With the sharp and delectable music of its dialect, the book grabs you by its teeth from the first page and never quite lets go . . . This is an urgent novel of ideas, constantly propelled by the narrator's wildfire voice' SAFIYA SINCLAIR, GUARDIAN From the Hawthornden Prize-winning author of An Olive Grove in Ends, a powerful story of broken dreams and divided loyalties Bristol, 1980. In the tight-knit neighbourhood of St. Pauls, 14-year-old Jabari is proud of his position as the only son of revered community leader Ras Levi. Raised in a world of sus laws and council neglect, Jabari finds hope in his Rastafari faith, which offers the comforting vision that one day he and his fellow believers will repatriate to the motherland, where they will at last be free from oppression and prejudice.
But in St Pauls a local firebrand activist has been arrested, and violence soon overflows, pulling both father and son into its maelstrom. As Jabari rages against the iniquity, a chance encounter with a young Black child gifts him an opportunity for justice - or is it revenge?
Praise for An Olive Grove in Ends:
'Tough yet tender' Observer - 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2022 ''Luminous' Cherie Jones 'Moses' talent is off the scale' Donal Ryan 'Remarkable' Nathan Harris 'Consummately crafted' Patrick McCabe
Release date:
May 9, 2024
Publisher:
Headline
Print pages:
304
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‘What struck me most forcibly about An Olive Grove in Ends was the poetic strength and majesty of its prose - as the author himself might have it, ‘like clarified honey’. From an author of such tender years – he is yet but twenty-two - this consummately crafted work can only be a harbinger of a stellar and truly significant career. I urge you to read it.’
Patrick McCabe, author of The Butcher Boy
‘Magnificent. Moses’ talent is off the scale . . . This is a phenomenally good novel, tense and thrilling and complex, with breath-stealing moments on every page. And the language. Oh, man.’
Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning Heart
‘Chronicles the hard graft and grit of ghetto life in a poignant coming-of-age story rendered in the crackling song of a multi-ethnic UK street. McKenzie offers a rare glimpse into the harsh realities of street life and love in luminous prose, rendered with sensitivity and without sentimentalism. An astonishing debut novel about which I’ll be talking to everyone!’
Cherie Jones, author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House
‘His engrossing first-person narrative, lyrical and slangy by turns, is the vehicle for a tough yet tender story of faith and friendship.’
‘10 Best Debut Novelists of 2022’, Anthony Cummins, Observer New Review
‘Brutal in places but always beautiful, An Olive Grove in Ends is a bullishly brilliant debut by a young author with a very bright future.’
Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Guardian
‘A remarkable debut, bristling with sharp prose and daring originality. Moses McKenzie offers us a fascinating glimpse into the vibrant world of Ends, whose colourful inhabitants – Sayon in particular – will linger with readers long after the novel comes to a close.’
Nathan Harris, author of The Sweetness of Water
‘A captivating coming-of-age story . . . Moses McKenzie deals with Sayon’s inner turmoil with tenderness and realism, highlighting just how difficult it is to escape your circumstances – no matter how hard you try. The book is full of wisdom, and McKenzie’s prose is simply beautiful.’
Prudence Wade, Independent
‘Announcing the arrival of a promising 23-year-old author whose work is wise beyond his years’
‘Book of the Day’, Colin Grant, Guardian
‘[McKenzie is] gonna be huge . . . Each rhythmic sentence [is] soaked in empathy for its subject matter’
‘Indroducing the UK’s Biggest, Brightest Young Things’, Jade Wickes, The Face
‘The story is completely gripping and expertly paced, the characterisation is rounded and complex, especially the different relationships between characters. I’m in awe of how fully the nuances of the relationships come through in such small details that speak large. And the language – oh my – what an impressive range of registers Moses hits with such beauty in the lyrical bits, such music in the dialogue, and such efficiency throughout. Zero fluff.’
Melissa Fu, author of Peach Blossom Spring
‘Lyrically written and peppered with well-observed slang and dialect, the book paints a vivid picture of the community around the vibrant Stapleton Road area of the city.’
Christian Lisseman, Big Issue
1
All the story I ever see set off with short dedication that read: for Jacob, or for Mama and Papa, or, for all my many brothers and sisters them, and then everything that come after don’t have nothing to do with Jacob, and blast-all to do with any brother or sister. But when I&I story begin: for Ras Levi, everything that come afterward – all the likkle things, the tangent, both the present and the past – everything has everything to do with you, Papa. I mean, even when you think say it don’t. Because for all this recent talk bout greyness and moral ambiguity, the world is black and white. There is still such thing as right and wrong – plain and simple. No need for complexity or lengthy discussion. No need at all to smoke herb or sit and reason. I know now that what Angela attempt to do that spring of 1980 was right. What I-man done was right. Same with Makeda and Joyce and the rest of the St Pauls people them: the Rasta and the feminist alike. In the end, what all of we done was right. Only you was wrong, Papa. But of course you don’t see it that way, you think it’s I-man what’s wrong, which is where that infernal grey even come about inna the first place. Still, I’m here to show you just how wrong you are. You know some things, a lot of things, but you don’t know everything, Papa, so if you do read this, I don’t want you fi skip over the things where you think say you know already, like when I start telling you when and where I was born, or how I-man come inna the world, or what St Pauls look like. Because two people, twins even, can see the same exact thing, from the same exact spot – for example a lion hunting a zebra on some African plain – and still come away with two separate account. Which some might say is an example of greyness, but it’s not, because there is still a right and a wrong, Papa. The lion pounce pon the zebra and kill it, don’t matter if the sun was in one of the twin eye and him see a gazelle, don’t matter if the other have bad vision from him born and him see a leopard. Since the Almighty-I is true, there must be a right and there must be a wrong: you taught I&I that, and I won’t forget it, even if you have.
So, if you remember, Papa, I was born in 1966, the year His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie-I the first visit Jamaica and Rita Marley swear she see the mark pon him hand where Christ was nail to the cross. The stigmata, that’s what them call: most people wouldn’t know that. Most people never remember 1966 as the year His Imperial Majesty visit Jamaica neither. Them remember it as the year England win the football World Cup. Difference is I don’t give one heck bout England. When I was born, it weren’t in no hospital. I first open I eye in Miss Nefertari living room, on Campbell Street, in St Pauls, Bristol, not two minutes from the Cultural and Community Centre, not tree from the Mother Earth.
Ras Levi swear him would have a son. Miss Nefertari squat against the wall and never raise her voice. Ras Levi dismiss the local woman from the room and demand I come out in His Imperial Majesty divine name. Then him support Miss Nefertari with him left hand and deliver I with him right. I blink and the first thing I ever seen was the blue tarpaulin them spread fi catch Miss Nefertari blood. The next thing was Ras Levi goatee: long and jungly. Him hand I back to Miss Nefertari, taking such care to avoid the soft part of I head that him let I neck loll and I bawl and bawl. When I was back with Miss Nefertari I did stop and Ras Levi call the woman back inna the room so them could see to them congratulation and irrelevance – induct Miss Nefertari into motherhood, as it were. Then him wash him hand, twice, fetch him tam from the plastic cover arm of the brown leather sofa and went on to meet Ras Joseph Tafari at the top floor of the Cultural and Community Centre, same as him did do every day.
I never ax Ras Levi very many question growing up – it was not the done thing for a boy to ax too much of him fada – but not long before I twelfth earthstrong, I ax him why him did dismiss the local woman from the room, since it never make sense that a man such as himself would partake inna task such as midwifery. Him tell I that it was a lion responsibility to ensure that him cub come inna the world. Him say if I was born an empress then him would’ve left the sistrens with Miss Nefertari and visit I&I afterward. Him say him would’ve try until Miss Nefertari did give him a boy: but there I was, him first and only child, and a lion cub was a lion responsibility.
I was raise inna household where we might’ve drank the milk drawn from our goat, but the consumption of meat was as unwelcome as backchat. Where RastafarI language did reign supreme, so I&I did not apprecihate, I&I apprecilove. We did not understand, we overstood. When I was a yuteman I knew all that Ras Levi expect. I would’ve gathered wood pon the mountaintop of Moriah if it would only contribute to the cause, and when time came, I would plant seed in Shashamaneland for I&I yutes to reap, just like I-man forefather in the hilltop of Jamaica. Ras Levi was our Negus Nagast, our prophet. Him was the first RastafarI in St Pauls when Jah send him from Jamaica in ’46, and by the 1960s him had establish and lash RastafarI until the bind could be remove and a brotherhood would remain. Him was a man of presence, Ras Levi – a bronze statue, tall and serious. When the Nazi National Front beat a brother up, it was him one who always march from the centre and muster the troops them. When the coppers did harass a sistren, it was him the people would fetch. A crowd would gather round the enemy and court would be held. It don’t matter how many time the pigs them did capture him. It did not matter how many time them flog him inna the street. Him would remain Ras Levi the defence attorney, the patient, the good.
Ras Levi.
Ras Levi.
Him was almost sixty in 1980 but him skin stay satiny. Him seem to be almost sixty I entire life, and sixty may have look old pon some, but him did wear the age better than most man did wear twenty-five. Ras Levi have these narrow, rolling muscle like the Blue Mountain, which stand from him neck and back and ran the length of him arm. Like any Ras, him was as sharp as them come, but him did have a way of turning conversation inna a sermon that make talking to him difficult. You could listen by all means, but him was always going to say exactly what him would’ve said, whether you gave your twopence or not.
Ras Levi teeth were stain by ganja. Him feature were chisel, and him flaunt him colourful dashiki in the face of Babylon conjecture. When Ras Levi speak, him lion mane shake. You nah affi have locs to be a Ras (it’s not the dread pon your head but the love in your heart that make you one of we) but every Ras I ever respect grew them out long. Before Elkanah wife, Hannah, was pregnant with Samuel, she promise Jah never to cut him hair, and him become a prophet. Same way, long-hair Samson was the strongest man to ever live.
It’s because of Samuel and Samson that Iyaman grow locs inna the first place, and in the whole of St Pauls, and in the whole of England, Ras Levi were the longest. Them did hang low like ripe fruit and fell to him ankle. Thick in some place and marga in others. In him younger, Christian days, him hair was cut short and was jet black – I’d seen the school photos when him pose as a boy in Jamaica, him face stern, even then, and him collar press – but I remember him mane best budding from a small, greying afro and becoming browner as it grew away from its roots and was mark by the sun. When I was younger, I kept I own locs neat, but after Ras Levi said I tended them like an empress, I soon stop, and them become like his: thick and marga and wild – a crown of thorns.
Ras Levi had Miss Nefertari home-school I-man in I early years. Him care more bout I pan-African study and knowledge of RastafarI than following Babylon curriculum. ‘An Englishman can’t teach yuh nothing but how to forgive him crime’ – is what Ras Levi would say. We never use no book or pen. Ras Levi prefer I was taught like the griot of Western Sudan: everything word of mouth, verbal. That’s why I can talk for days on end. That’s what Miss Nefertari use to say, anyway. She use to say, ‘Boysah Jabari, yuh can talk for days on end, man.’ And it’s true. Sometimes I talk so much, I forget where I start and affi figure it out by reading the other person body language.
Eventually, and for reasons I’ll come to explain, I was send a school age eleven, but still, the only time attendance was compulsory in I&I yard was when I had maths, and that’s because Ras Levi say maths is unbias. Him say, ‘One plus one is two no matter where yuh go.’ And in that him was right, that’s why I only excel in two subject: physical education and maths. It’s not as if I is a dunce or I have some degenerative mind disease, I can recite Garvey entire life story and most of the King James Bible back to front, but every year I had the most unexplain absence tally in the form register, and the times I wasn’t in attendance I would be at Ras Levi hem, travelling for nyahbingi in Handsworth or conference in Moss Side. I follow him to Leeds and Liverpool, Sheffield and Nottingham: learning from the most righteous RastafarI on the island.
Since we never have no secondary school in St Pauls – only two primary, and the nursery the empress them held on the third floor of the centre – we were force to travel miles into Southmead to attend Pen Park Girls and Greenway Boys, or some yutes went into other Nazi National Front area fi them miseducation. Ras Levi did rent a couple bus that took we from Frontline to our respective school gate, but the Nazi soon graffiti them with racist slur and whenever we pass through them area the white boys would pelt the window with rock and mud. It was the same in school. I remember Jim Broad wrote, ‘Sarah Beam loves a nigger from St Pauls’ on the blackboard, and Mr Fowler left it there a whole ten minute before I pick up I desk and fling it at him head. I was strong like that, always had been. Fowler was in hospital for two day. Them suspend I for ten. Lucky not to see the inside of a cell, some say. But Ras Levi only praise I when the school come and tell him what happen. Him pat I crown and tell Miss Nefertari fi jerk I favourite sweet potato for dinner, with the callaloo on the side and the white rice.
I’m sitting in I borstal cot as I read over this, Papa, prop up by I pillow, pen in hand, amending what I’ve written these past month. We been inside, what, two years now, Papa? Making the year 1982 and I-man sixteen. An envelope sit atop the desk I share with I celly. The thing already address to your sister prison elsewhere in the north of the country, where you’re confine by similar locks and bolts as I: two buffalo soldier label threat to national security, still trap, now more than ever, in Babylon system.
You never did respond to none of the other correspondence I sent, and I know that despite the long trial, you may well still be in the dark on the subject of what exactly happen leading up to our imprisonment. I expect you already tell your cellmate that it’s I-man fault you’re inside. I expect you tell him soon as you reach. And while there is some truth to that, I swear it’s not extravagant to say the fault share by Angela, given it was she who start this whole damn thing. But then someone might say it was the one who raise Angela, and then you would affi admit that them would’ve been mess up by somebody else before them and then somebody else before them, and then somebody would say, ‘Well, what bout the English who built and abandon St Pauls?’ And once you went back far enough, whether you follow Angela family history, or the English who built and abandon St Pauls, you’d soon arrive at slavery. And since no one want talk bout slavery, and in order to have you overstand why I make the decision I make – the one what land we in here and disappoint you so much – I’ll go back to the March of 1980, when Angela come close to blowing the racist bank to kingdom come.
It was one of those maths-less mornings at the beginning of the school week where only Miss Nefertari and I were home – the day this whole trouble start – although of course, I was unaware of its significance at the time. To I-man the day was perfectly normal. I had a stout breakfast of ackee, red onion and fry dumplin, while Miss Nefertari blast ‘Look Youthman’ on the record player and went round the yard polishing the cutlery and washing the curtains them. She went to work on the kitchen with her buff and wax (of which she had more than two cupboards full), then she let fly at the bathroom and the bedroom them, the living room, the window, and lastly the carpet that ran the stairs. Despite being her one and only yute, in those days I’d never claim to know Miss Nefertari – I had not since a child, and I certainly never did at fourteen. In those days, only fragment of sentence made it from behind her lips. I knew her for muttering, ‘It was wrong how them do that,’ and, ‘Nevermind no bad advice, Missy.’ She would tell I to listen as much as I talk, and whenever something go wrong she say, ‘God have a wicked sense of humour,’ or, ‘What-to-do, what-to-do.’ When she did speak, she spoke often of divorce, and when she hear tell of Mr so-and-so leaving Mrs so-and-so – because it was always Mr so-and-so doing the leaving – she’d say it was a great shame, a great shame, before busying herself with her music and the smooth ticking of the house.
Back in Clarendon, her mama had taught her that there was no greater embarrassment for a woman than having her man leave. Not long afterward, Miss Nefertari own fada left her mama for a younger woman and the chance of a mistress. And so Miss Nefertari joke would begin and end with Ras Levi imminent departure, quiet half-joke that irritate I fada no end, but she couldn’t help herself, so him did learn fi suffer them.
By the time I was fourteen, she had no real bredrin. She kept company and held counsel with herself. She never need a group of tree or no invitation to a mothers’ meeting. Her digestion kept her spring. She was tall, still taller than I-man, and compare to the rest of the yutes round the way, I was hardly short. She had locs, same as Ras Levi and I, which she wore garland above her head.
If I remember rightly, she had more to say when I was six or seven. She was more social too. Back the. . .
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