New Day

First published in 1949, New Day has been read as an historical novel about Morant Bay and the early nationalist movement. Now, nearly 70 years later, what stands out is its acute portrayal of one man's way of seeing, from the intensity of childhood, to the comfortable self-satisfaction of middle age and old age's vicarious looking-on. At the heart of what is a more complex and conflicted narrative is a richly lyrical treatment of the human body and the network of its relations to the natural world, and a tragic awareness of how those connections fade as John Campbell moves from the peasant world of his childhood to manhood in the counting house, managing and profiting from capitalist agricultural production.