Meet Me in Mozambique [Paperback]

"'Markham's deadpan wit and self-protective irony never desert him. He's never less than funny, and never less than moving' Boyd Tonkin, the Independent 'Markham's work is not as familiar as it should be. Yet earlier volumes have been very highly praised by such Caribbean intellectuals as CLR James, and by the British critical establishment... Markham's intriguing poetry demonstrates great reach, illustrating its intelligence in both big and small moments, often geographically and culturally disparate, which merge unexpectedly' (Guardian, August 2002)"

With accomplished flair, these intricately linked stories dance around Caribbean culture, air travel to Europe, teenage study in west London, idealism and independence in Africa, and academic rivalry in Sheffield. It features: witty and inventive stories from a richly stocked poetic mind - including charming family anecdotes from Montserrat, where grandmother, mother and C. J. Harris expect so much of a young student with ambition, a restless world traveller's tales - from the Caribbean to Mozambique - via London and Sheffield, the entwined adventures of an intriguing cast of comic personae: Colin Retford, Pewter Stapleton and Vincente da Firenze, delicate, playful post-colonial reflections - on Oswald Mosley, Kwame Nkrumah, Nasser Hussein...A poet of international reputation, E. A. Markham has been gathering a store of comic pieces to complement his volumes of poetry. This collection will introduce a wise and sparkling storytelling voice to many new readers; it should be filed under humour, as well as short stories and Caribbean literature. Markham is a writer of great vitality - his political, personal and social comment is wry, powerful and always entertaining. "Meet Me in Mozambique" is a collection of imaginative short pieces, spanning a lifetime of travel and writing. There are many characters with overlapping backgrounds - Pewter Stapleton in Sheffield, C. J. Harris in St Caesare, and Colin Retford in Mozambique. The stories travel between three continents, often via London where the writer spent his teenage years. London is a 1950s world of racism; the 1960s a time of political idealism, with models of black independence tested in Ghana, Nigeria - and Mozambique. Markham's stories meander in comic, self-deprecating fashion between tales of all these people and all these places to create an audacious world of their own.

‘Markham uses words with quicksilver fluency: the writing, playful and skilful, lends the intricate stories a dazzling sparkle’ (Metro)
‘Here comes the nimble-footed, silver-tongued Markham (whose) deadpan wit and self-protective irony never desert him. He’s never less than funny, and never less than moving. The English-speaking Carribean has bread wonderful wanderers fro his generation, but none can boast a literary voice as wryly companionable as this.’ (Boyd Tonkin, Independent)
‘Markham’s intriguing poetry demonstrates great reach, illustrating its intelligence in both big and small moments, often geographically and culturally disparate, which merge unexpectedly’ (Guardian)

Globe-trotting Pewter Stapleton is most at home in airports. Her sends last-minute postcards worldwide and misses his flights. From childhood on the volcanic island of St Caesare to teenage days studying in Ladbroke Grove, he’s now a university professor in Sheffield. Teased by friends and rivals for his ‘harem’ of students, he books a flight to Mozambique: his mission to track down the mysterious Colin Retford.

‘One day as they were driving along one of those mountain roads, the dog’s head exploded out of the blue and taught Ransley a lesson ...’

E. A. MARKHAM was born on the volcanic Caribbean island of Montserrat - known here by the invented name of St Caesare - and went to school in 1950s London. After working in theatre in London and the Eastern Caribbean, he lived mainly in continental Europe in the 1970s - Sweden, Germany and France, where he was a member of the Cooperative Ouvriere du Batiment, building and restoring houses in the Alpes Maritimes. Markham has held Writing Residencies and Fellowships in London, Ipswich, Ulster and Humberside. He has taught at the University of Newcastle, and is Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University, a programme he has headed for the past 14 years. He is the editor of The Hinterland: Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain (Bloodaxe, 1997) and The Penguin Book of Caribbean Short Stories (1996). E. A. Markham has published eight distinguished collections of poetry, three collections of short stories and a novel - his collection A Rough Climate (2002) was recently shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. In his writing, E. A. Markham could be compared with V. S. Naipaul for his flinty intelligence, his world citizen outlook; or with Angela Levy and Samuel Selvon for his understanding of the 1950s black immigrant experience; or with Derek Walcott for his warmly humorous sense of Caribbean island life; with David Dabydeen for his bold literary experimentation. But his is a unique voice - volatile, unsentimental but always elegant.