The Leopard

by Victor Stafford Reid

A novel of life in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion, written by a Jamaican author.

110 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1958

About the author

Jamaican writer born in Kingston, Jamaica. He wrote with the intent of influencing the younger generations. He was awarded the silver (1950) and gold (1976) Musgrave Medals, the Order of Jamaica (1980), and the Norman Manley Award for Excellence in Literature in 1981. He was the author of several novels, three of which were aimed at children; one play production; and several short stories. Two of his most notable works are New Day - "the first West Indian novel to be written throughout in a dialect form", and The Leopard.

As a writer, Reid aimed to instill an awareness of legacy and tradition among the Jamaican people. His writings reflected many of the social and cultural hardships that pervade the time periods illustrated in his literary works. As literary critic Edward Baugh stated, "Reid’s writing shows a fondness for the rebel with a cause… he wanted people to learn about their heritage through his writing."

Reid was one of a handful of writers to emerge from the new literary and nationalist movement that seized Jamaican sentiment in the period of the late 1930s. From this "new art" surfaced many of Reid's literary contemporaries, including Roger Mais, George Campbell, M. G. Smith, and H. D. Carberry. A common objective among this new generation of writers was an inclination to "break away from Victorianism and to associate with the Jamaican independence movement."

Reid's emphasis on resistance and struggle is reaffirmed in a 1978 lecture he delivered at the Institute of Jamaica on the topic of the cultural revolution in Jamaica post-1938. In the address, Reid contended that the collective discontent of the working class majority was the public assertion of a "new brand of loyalty" that situated itself not only beyond, but more importantly, in direct resistance to imperial rule.

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