The Prime Minister

The tourists call it paradise; this tiny island in the sun. And John Moore, returning to his native land after 20 years in the North to assume a government post, is proud to be “going home.” But he finds that the nation’s new independent status has not changed the hypocrisy and ignorance of the people, and his optimism soon gives way to frustration and paranoia.

Austin Clarke was a professor of literature and taught at Yale, Brandeis, Williams, Duke, and the Universities of Texas and Indiana. He assisted in setting up a Black Studies program at Yale in 1968, after which he became the cultural attaché of the Embassy of Barbados in Washington, D.C. Culminating with the international success of The Polished Hoe, which won the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and the Trillium Prize. Austin Clarke’s work since 1964 includes eleven novels, six short-story collections, and four memoirs. He lived in Toronto until his death in June 2016.