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Johnson's Dictionary
Winner of the 2014 Guyana Prize for Fiction, Johnson's Dictionary is set variously in 18th century London and Demerara in British Guiana. It is a celebration of the skills of the enslaved as organisers, story-tellers, artists and mathematicians, hidden in the main from their white masters and mistresses, that is resonant with an undying human urge for freedom.
Galley, gallery, In a novel set in 18th century London and Demerara (in British Guiana), that might be dreamed or remembered by Manu, a revenant from Dabydeen's epic poem, "Turner", we meet slaves, lowly women on the make, lustful overseers, sodomites and pious Jews – characters who have somehow come alive from engravings by Hogarth and others.
Hogarth himself turns up as a drunkard official artist in Demerara, from whom the slave Cato steals his skills and discovers a way of remaking his world.
The transforming power of words is what enlightens Francis when his kindly (or possibly pederastic) master gifts him a copy of Johnson's Dictionary, whilst the idiot savant, known as Mmadboy, reveals the uncanny mathematical skills that enable him to beat Adam Smith to the discovery of the laws of capital accumulation – and teach his fellow slaves their true financial worth.
From the dens of sexual specialities where the ex-slave Francis conducts a highly popular flagellant mission to cure his clients of their man-love (and preach abolition), to the sugar estates of Demerara, Dabydeen's novel revels in the connections of Empire, Art, Literature and human desire in ways that are comic, salutary and redemptive.
David Dabydeen was born in Guyana in 1957. He is only the second West Indian writer, following VS Naipaul, to be named a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. New and Selected Poems (Cape, 1994) was republished by Peepal Tree in 2002. His 1999 novel A Harlot's Progress was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His other novels include Disappearance (Peepal Tree, 2005) and Molly and the Muslim Stick (2008). He co-edited the Oxford Companion to Black British History (2007), and his documentaries on Guyana have appeared on BBC TV and radio. David is now Professor at the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick.
Galley, gallery, In a novel set in 18th century London and Demerara (in British Guiana), that might be dreamed or remembered by Manu, a revenant from Dabydeen's epic poem, "Turner", we meet slaves, lowly women on the make, lustful overseers, sodomites and pious Jews – characters who have somehow come alive from engravings by Hogarth and others.
Hogarth himself turns up as a drunkard official artist in Demerara, from whom the slave Cato steals his skills and discovers a way of remaking his world.
The transforming power of words is what enlightens Francis when his kindly (or possibly pederastic) master gifts him a copy of Johnson's Dictionary, whilst the idiot savant, known as Mmadboy, reveals the uncanny mathematical skills that enable him to beat Adam Smith to the discovery of the laws of capital accumulation – and teach his fellow slaves their true financial worth.
From the dens of sexual specialities where the ex-slave Francis conducts a highly popular flagellant mission to cure his clients of their man-love (and preach abolition), to the sugar estates of Demerara, Dabydeen's novel revels in the connections of Empire, Art, Literature and human desire in ways that are comic, salutary and redemptive.
David Dabydeen was born in Guyana in 1957. He is only the second West Indian writer, following VS Naipaul, to be named a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. New and Selected Poems (Cape, 1994) was republished by Peepal Tree in 2002. His 1999 novel A Harlot's Progress was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His other novels include Disappearance (Peepal Tree, 2005) and Molly and the Muslim Stick (2008). He co-edited the Oxford Companion to Black British History (2007), and his documentaries on Guyana have appeared on BBC TV and radio. David is now Professor at the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2013
27 people want to read
About the author
David Dabydeen
35 books25 followersDavid Dabydeen (born 9 December 1955) is a Guyanese-born critic, writer, novelist and academic. Since 2010 he has been Guyana's ambassador to China.
Dabydeen is the author of novels, collections of poetry and works of non-fiction and criticism, as editor as well as writer. His first book, Slave Song (1984), a collection of poetry, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the Quiller-Couch Prize. A further collection, Turner: New and Selected Poems, was published in 1994, and reissued in 2002; the title-poem, Turner is an extended sequence or verse novel responding to a painting by J. M. W. Turner, "Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon coming on" (1840).
His first novel, The Intended (1991), the story of a young Asian student abandoned in London by his father, won the Guyana Prize for Literature. Disappearance (1993) tells the story of a young Guyanese engineer working on the south coast of England who lodges with an elderly woman. The Counting House (1996) is set at the end of the nineteenth century and narrates the experiences of an Indian couple whose hopes of a new life in colonial Guyana end in tragedy. The story explores historical tensions between indentured Indian workers and Guyanese of African descent. His 1999 novel, A Harlot's Progress, is based on a series of pictures painted in 1732 by William Hogarth (who was the subject of Dabydeen's PhD) and develops the story of Hogarth's black slave boy. Through the character of Mungo, Dabydeen challenges traditional cultural representations of the slave. His latest novel, Our Lady of Demerara, was published in 2004.
Dabydeen has been awarded the title of fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the second West Indian writer (V.S. Naipaul was the first) and the only Guyanese writer to receive the title.
In 2001 Dabydeen wrote and presented The Forgotten Colony, a BBC Radio 4 programme exploring the history of Guyana. His one-hour documentary Painting the People was broadcast by BBC television in 2004.
The Oxford Companion to Black British History, co-edited by Dabydeen, John Gilmore and Cecily Jones, appeared in 2007.
In 2007, Dabydeen was awarded the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award for his outstanding contribution to literature and the intellectual life of the Indian diaspora.
(from Wikipedia)
Dabydeen is the author of novels, collections of poetry and works of non-fiction and criticism, as editor as well as writer. His first book, Slave Song (1984), a collection of poetry, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the Quiller-Couch Prize. A further collection, Turner: New and Selected Poems, was published in 1994, and reissued in 2002; the title-poem, Turner is an extended sequence or verse novel responding to a painting by J. M. W. Turner, "Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon coming on" (1840).
His first novel, The Intended (1991), the story of a young Asian student abandoned in London by his father, won the Guyana Prize for Literature. Disappearance (1993) tells the story of a young Guyanese engineer working on the south coast of England who lodges with an elderly woman. The Counting House (1996) is set at the end of the nineteenth century and narrates the experiences of an Indian couple whose hopes of a new life in colonial Guyana end in tragedy. The story explores historical tensions between indentured Indian workers and Guyanese of African descent. His 1999 novel, A Harlot's Progress, is based on a series of pictures painted in 1732 by William Hogarth (who was the subject of Dabydeen's PhD) and develops the story of Hogarth's black slave boy. Through the character of Mungo, Dabydeen challenges traditional cultural representations of the slave. His latest novel, Our Lady of Demerara, was published in 2004.
Dabydeen has been awarded the title of fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the second West Indian writer (V.S. Naipaul was the first) and the only Guyanese writer to receive the title.
In 2001 Dabydeen wrote and presented The Forgotten Colony, a BBC Radio 4 programme exploring the history of Guyana. His one-hour documentary Painting the People was broadcast by BBC television in 2004.
The Oxford Companion to Black British History, co-edited by Dabydeen, John Gilmore and Cecily Jones, appeared in 2007.
In 2007, Dabydeen was awarded the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award for his outstanding contribution to literature and the intellectual life of the Indian diaspora.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 26, 2016
Right away, I knew I was in good hands. Dabydeen is a master of language, flipping through different registers from bruk up Creole to fancypants pompous English. Language divides us, language defines us.
"Massa Theodore sah, he bubb blub cana," I said pouring out more lemondade.Have you ever heard of Demerara? I hadn't. It was a sugar-producing region in the colony of British Guiana. Hogarth appears in this tale, and other characters weave in and out of different fragments in a way that hints at History. Dabydeen disorients the reader just enough to make it interesting for you goodreaders out there. And so we have yet another pitifully overlooked author to add to the wishlist.
"Speak English, boy," he commanded.
"It is how we Negroes defuse anger such as yours," I could have told Mr Basnett. "We have learnt it over centuries: when the cudgel is raised over us we issue from the bowels of our mouth a stream of piffle, creative on the spot. Oh the spontaneity of our inventive minds! Having brayed at you such nonsense we then grin stupidly, that famous grin that glints in the sunshine, distracting you for a moment from your cruel intent. You want to laugh instead at our condition, or else you are baffled as to how creatures such as us, resembling humans in every way (head, stomach, feet with toes) should be so akin to mules."
October 2, 2023
If you've come this far, you already know that you'll read it, and that you'll like it.
Compared to Slave Songs, the text is less provoking in its nature, but that is still a pretty high bar to set for Dabydeen. We have similar characters, often even named the same. And with characters from the archival history, like Hogarth and Gladstone, he juggles the reader between fact and fiction. The basic ideas that he explores in this novel arenot drastically different than in his previous works, but his approach is. Here, instead of the wanting, needing, suffering canecutter, you have a black character who in fact stands tall against the white, and mocks them in their face to his leisure, beats them in their own game in many ways.
Dabydeen's storytelling is not my cup of tea, hence the one missing star, but content-wise, if you've read any of his works before and liked it, you will not be disappointed.
Compared to Slave Songs, the text is less provoking in its nature, but that is still a pretty high bar to set for Dabydeen. We have similar characters, often even named the same. And with characters from the archival history, like Hogarth and Gladstone, he juggles the reader between fact and fiction. The basic ideas that he explores in this novel arenot drastically different than in his previous works, but his approach is. Here, instead of the wanting, needing, suffering canecutter, you have a black character who in fact stands tall against the white, and mocks them in their face to his leisure, beats them in their own game in many ways.
Dabydeen's storytelling is not my cup of tea, hence the one missing star, but content-wise, if you've read any of his works before and liked it, you will not be disappointed.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews