Kadeen is passionate about football, but her life is thrown into a spin after she witnesses the murder of her brother. For the sake of her safety, she needs to leave Jamaica and is sent to her Aunt Mel in England where she must navigate grief, culture shock and an unfamiliar environment, while trying to secretly pursue her passion for football against her aunt’s wishes.
The relevance of Alex Wheatle’s latest work, Kemosha of the Caribbean, could not be more timely. This modern exploration looks at the human tragedy of one of our darkest and most shameful episodes, the brutal enslavement and horrifying exploitation of African people shipped to the Caribbean.
When we first meet Welton, he’s about to start one of the worst days of his life. Although utterly chuffed that he asked out Carmella the day before, Welton wakes up with a dead phone and so no way to text and firm up their date. Once at school, a catalogue of hilarious slapstick disasters ensue as he vomits his breakfast over the girl in front of him in class, sprains his ankle, is bullied and threatened (a routine part of his day) and gets detention.
From its title and cover it should be pretty clear to readers that this story isn’t set in the Devon countryside. Rather it concerns Briggy, his mate Terror and his sort-of-girlfriend Caldonia, all residents of Crongton, ‘the toughest fictional estate in London’. When the three are in detention one afternoon, Terror, with Briggy’s reluctant compliance, hatches a plan to rob the local post office. As the jacket blurb tellsus, what could possibly go wrong?
