PAPERBACK ISBN: 0-88258-222-4   $31.95

362 pages; 6 x 9 inches

by Oliver Jackman

In the novel, Saw the House in Half, by Oliver Jackman, Sinclair Brathwaite, a young West Indian from Barbados slowly develops a gnawing uncertainty about the concept that “the highest form attainable by the black human being is that of the black Englishman.”  Brathwaite’s search for self-realization is set in sharp relief by his countryman Dacosta Payne, a shrewd, calcu­lating entrepreneur and symbolic inhabitant of the “house sawed in half”—his native island.  From England, Brathwaite goes to Nigeria to begin a career in jour­nalism.  It is there that the central story unfolds, filled with political intrigue, personal conflicts, and love affairs as intense and complex as the people involved in them. 

The characters in this captivating tome are fascinating and include the beautiful Tola, a member of an elite Nigerian family, who finds in Sinclair a willing lover; Auguste, a successful lawyer who introduces Sinclair to Nigerian society; Adumuyiwa, an insurance underwriter turned politician, whose activities provoke harassments from the British government; Myron, an ambitious industrialist who thrives off the wealth of Nigeria; and Funke, a notorious prostitute/businesswoman who defies explanation.

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