Redemption Ground: Essays and Adventures

In her first-ever collection of essays, poet and novelist Lorna Goodison interweaves the personal and political to explore themes that have occupied her working life: her love of poetry and the arts, colonialism and its legacy, racism and social justice, authenticity, and the enduring power of friendship. Taking its title from one of Kingston’s oldest markets, Redemption Ground introduces us to a vivid cast of characters and remembers moments of epiphany—in a cinema in Jamaica, at New York’s Bottom Line club, and as she searched for a Black hairdresser in Paris and drank tea in London’s Marylebone High Street. Enlightening and entertaining, these essays explore not only daily challenges but also the compassion that enables us to rise above them. They confirm her as a major figure in world literature.

Reviews

Praise for From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People:

Steeped in local lore and spiced with infectious dialect and ditties, Goodison’s memoir reaches back over generations to evoke the mythic power of childhood. —Publishers Weekly

Goodison unveils intimate worlds teeming with all the local flavor and poignancy of a Zora Neale Hurston novel. —Kirkus Reviews

Goodison’s prose creates memorable characters … and captures them at memorable moments, managing to remain intimate while simultaneously expanding the family history into a mythology of a distinct place and time. —Globe and Mail

A feat of history, imagination and artistic achievement … [It] is a sumptuous montage of landscapes, portraits and anecdotes—sepia-toned period pieces—that impress vividly upon the mind. —Toronto Star