Austin Clarke

Austin Clarke photo from Bukowski Agency

The Polished Hoe (Amistad 2002) was a towering achievement of a novel. It garnered a bouquet of international prizes and honours including the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Prize and was co-winner of the Trillium Award.

The book also sold more than 30,000 copies in Canada alone and spent many weeks on the bestseller list. Internationally, it got rave reviews from The Guardian, The Independent, The New York Times, The Sydney Herald, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and more.

The story takes place over one night on a fictitious Caribbean Island called Bimshire, as a woman takes her time to confess to a murder, as she slowly reveals what led up to it. The gripping story, brought out to a large degree through the dialogue between the two main characters, portrays the history of slavery in the West Indies, along with some of its most devastating effects.

Interviewed in Quill and Quire in 2003 after becoming a Giller and Commonwealth Prize celeberity, Clarke revealed to Donna Bailey Nurse that after 40 years of writing, he was looking forward to getting a decent advance, and had no plans for retiring. He is now in his mid-seventies.

Clarke has written nine novels to date, along with six short story collections and a culinary memoir of Barbados, called Love and Sweet Food.