One People

Set in the village of Cousins Cove, Jamaica, One People plunges us into a small community where everyone knows everyone's business, poverty is a way of life and dreams of escape trickle through fingers. Guy Kennaway's comic novel - sparkling with irreverent wit and written partly in Patwa - is cherished in Jamaica for its humour and humanity. It celebrates the essence of the island, where 'culture is something that comes from the ground up and good times do not require a whole heap o' money'. First published in 1997, the book grew out of the tales that Kennaway listened to on the island during his first ten years as an idle expatriate.

Guy Kennaway writes fiction and memoir. In his work he likes to find minorities under pressure, and support their struggle and hail their victories, however small, by telling their unheard stories. He is best known for Bird Brain, a book about optimistic pheasants facing the shooting season, and The Accidental Collector, which won the Everyman Bollinger Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction in 2021. He lives in Jamaica and Somerset.