Daddy Sharpe

Book excerpt: Daddy Sharpe is a unique work of Caribbean fiction. It is the result of five years of historical research, details of which have been used to recreate a narrative of the life of one of Jamaica's National Heroes, Samuel Sharpe. Locked in prison, awaiting a sentence of certain execution, Samuel Sharpe retells the story of his life in the first person narrative, beginning with his boyhood days at Cooper's Hill in St James and ending with his surrender to the authorities after his defeat in the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831. These flashbacks are interwoven with present time musings while he is in prison. The reader becomes immediately engaged in the character of the hero and his struggles for spiritual and physical freedom but is also fascinated by the descriptions and historical details of life in Jamaica in the early nineteenth century.