Macmillan Caribbean Writers: She's Gone

Kofi, a Jamaican reggae musician, and Keisha, a social researcher from South Carolina, meet at a club where Kofi's band is playing on the tail end of a United States tour. A spark ignites between them and Kofi convinces Keisha to take a chance and follow him to Jamaica. Yet the Jamaica that Dawes writes about is thick with the politics of class and identity, full of characters with distinct agendas and needs - a world quite different from the stereotype of sea and sun. Keisha feels immediately like a stranger on this island, especially as Kofi succumbs to a bout of depression. "She's Gone" delves into the enigmatic challenge of two virtual strangers trying to negotiate differences of culture, nationality, class, and gender. If it is a love story, it is one marked by the harsh realities of human existence revealed in the songs of Bob Marley and the cool sensual intelligence of Milan Kundera.