My mother, Margaret Moneague, was murdered in Jamaica in 1919. History will not speak of her or record how valiantly she, who was little more than a child, struggled to survive against overwhelming poverty. History will be preoccupied with the lack of unionization of Kingston’s dock workers, the rise and fall of sugar cane prices, the precarious banana industry and its association with the United Fruit Company. And history will elaborate on the devastation caused by earthquakes and hurricanes earlier in the century. But it will not record the riveting circumstances of birth, in the back streets of Kingston, or my subsequent life. Therefore it is I, John Moneague, who am compelled to speak of it.
So begins Bernadette Gabay Dyer’s historical novel, Waltzes I Have Not Forgotten. In it, she traces John Moneague’s life in Kingston, his emigration away from his homeland, and his adjustment to life in London as a West Indian man living in the Great Depression. Riveting in its historical detail and rich characters, Dyer’s story reflects the realities that so many West Indian people faced during this epoch.
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