Minty Alley
Play sample
  • Published: 4 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241992845
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.99

Minty Alley

A collection of rediscovered works celebrating Black Britain curated by Booker Prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo

Formats & editions
Paperback
4 May 2021
Audiobook
4 Feb 2021
Buy from…
Apple Books Audible Google Play Kobo Libro.fm Spotify

The only novel from the revolutionary intellectual C.L.R. James, and the first novel by a black West Indian to be published in the UK

It is the 1920s in the Trinidadian capital, and Haynes' world has been upended. His mother has passed away, and his carefully mapped-out future of gleaming opportunity has disappeared with her.

Unable to afford his former life, he finds himself moving into Minty Alley - a bustling barrack yard teeming with life and a spectacular cast of characters. In this sliver of West Indian working-class society, outrageous love affairs and passionate arguments are a daily fixture, and Haynes begins to slip from curious observer to the heart of the action.

Minty Alley is a gloriously observed portrayal of class, community and the ways in which we are all inherently connected. An undisputed modern classic, this is an exceptional story told by one of the twentieth century's greatest Caribbean thinkers.
  • Published: 4 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241992845
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Cyril Lionel Robert James

C L R James, historian, novelist, cultural critic and political activist, was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad in 1901. In 1932 he joined his friend Learie Constantine in Britain, where he became cricket correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. A central figure in the Pan-African movement and the struggle for colonial emancipation, he returned to Trinidad in 1958 in its run-up to independence. He later went back to London, where he died in 1989.

Also by Cyril Lionel Robert James

Beyond A Boundary
The Black Jacobins
See all

Praise for Minty Alley

A novel written nearly a hundred years ago that brings the past alive with such charm, vitality and humour

Bernardine Evaristo

Unforgettable . . . Groundbreaking

Sam Jordinson, Guardian

In this novel, ordinary people - in this case primarily Caribbean women - display the extraordinary creativity and persistence in the face of life's challenges that's exemplary of Caribbean culture. It is near impossible to fully appreciate the artistic and political merits of James' later work without having read Minty Alley's vivid description of Trinidadian subaltern life

Philosophy Now

Minty Alley provides a rich literary rendering of working-class life in colonial Trinidad . . . its rediscovery and republication is an important event

The Arts Desk

[Minty Alley] is funny, gossipy and meandering . . . James uses Haynes's shy silence as a space to be filled with each characters' rich backstory, creating a historical soap opera more often relayed directly in the characters' Trinidadian vernacular

Bad Form

Light-hearted, comic, occasionally sobering, always engrossing, the novel is a lovely and captivating read

Bernadine Evaristo

Deservedly, James's work is undergoing a revival . . . The strength and value of the ordinary man is a through line in James's diverse body of work, and nowhere is this interest more evident than in Minty Alley

Paris Review

'Ground-breaking... [A] fictional masterpiece

Trinidad and Tobago Newsday