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Announcing the launch of the third book in the trilogy of memoires written by Rachel Manley, granddaughter of Jamaica’s national hero Norman Manley and first child of former PM Michael Manley (deceased). This book is called “Horses in her Hair” and is a compelling read about Norman’s wife, Edna and the enormous influence she had not only on their lives, but also on the art and culture scene in Jamaica.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">Horses in Her Hair
A Granddaughter's Story </span></span>
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Rachel Manley
There is a statue outside a courthouse in Kingston, Jamaica. Paul Bogle, a church deacon who fought in the slave rebellion of 1865 and was hung for his efforts, stands with his arms akimbo, a sword, like a cross, held flat against his chest. The figure, which towers some fifteen feet above the square, was created by Edna Manley.
Born on England’s cold and rocky Cornish coast, Edna Manley came to Jamaica in 1922. She travelled with her husband, Norman, her newborn son, a set of sculpting tools and an insatiable curiosity about the island of her mother’s birth. As the wife of a National Hero and mother to the island’s fifth prime minister, Edna’s life was inextricably linked with Jamaican politics. But she was destined to leave her own mark on her adopted country. Her legacy—much less easily defined, perhaps than either her husband’s or her son’s—can be seen and heard and read. It is firmly entrenched in the island’s art, in its sculpture and painting and poetry and prose. She was, some say, nothing less than the mother of Jamaica’s artistic soul.
In Horses in Her Hair, Rachel Manley—Edna’s granddaughter and an award-winning author—tells the remarkable story of her grandmother’s life. Completing the trilogy that began with Drumblair and Slipstream, Horses in Her hair is the story of both a family and a nation, an intimate and exquisitely crafted portrait of the woman who left such an indelible mark on each.
About the Contributor(s)
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RACHEL MANLEY is the author of the memoir Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood, which won the Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction in 1997, and Slipstream: A Daughter Remembers. She has also published three books of poetry and edited Edna Manley: The Diaries, a collection of her grandmother’s journals. Manley is a New York Public Library Fellow, a Pierre Berton Fellow, a Rockefeller Fellow (Bellagio), and a former Bunting Fellow for Literature at Radcliffe College. She serves on the creative writing faculty at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has won Jamaica’s prestigious Centennial Medal for Poetry. Manley divides her time between Toronto and Jamaica. She has two sons, Drum and Luke.
Key Porter Books
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Rachel Manley was born in Cornwall, England, in the late forties. Her parents had met in London when her father Michael Manley (who later became a Jamaican Prime Minister) was a student there. At the age of two, Manley was sent to Jamaica to live with her grandparents -- Jamaica's first Prime Minister Norman Manley and Edna his wife, who was a sculptor and painter.
Manley graduated from the University of the West Indies, and has since taught creative writing at the university level. She is also a former Mary Ingraham Bunting Fellow for Literature at Radcliffe College. She divides her time between Toronto and Jamaica.
It was Manley's grandmother, Edna, widely known for her artistic work in Jamaica who first encouraged her to investigate her creative side. Manley published her first poem in at the age of 11 and went on to become a well-known poet, publishing Prisms in 1972 followed by Poems Two, in 1981. Her third volume of poetry, A Light Left On (1992) was published by Peepal Tree Press.Manley is best known for her non-fiction work, starting with the edited collection of her grandmother's journaled words, Edna Manley: The Diaries (1989).
She has also two books in an impending trilogy of autobiographical and biographical works: Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood (1997) and Slipstream: A Daughter Remembersmbers (2000) [also titled In My Father's Shade (2004)]. Both books speak to the history of her very famous family and the experience of growing up within this context in Jamaica.
Manley, has won various awards for her non-fiction work. Most notably, she received the 1997 Governor General’s Award for Literature (Canada) for her work Drumblair: Memoirs of a Jamaican Childhood.
She is also the holder of various international fellowships, including the Virginia Center for Creative Arts Fellowship; Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellowship, Italy; Pierre Berton Fellowship—Yukon, Canada; Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship; New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship; and the Hawthornden Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland Writer’s Fellowship. For poetry, she received the Jamaica Centennial Medal for Poetry in 1979.
Bibliography
In My Father's Shade (new title of Slipstream: A Daughter Remembers) Turnaround Publishers 2004
Slipstream: A Daughter Remembers Vintage Publishers 2001, 2000
Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood Ian Randle 1996, 1997
A Light Left On Peepal Tree Press 1992
Edna Manley: The Diaries. Edited by Rachel Manley 1989
Prisms Peepal Tree Press 1972
Audio
"Rachel being a memoirist"(mp3) Listen Read (PDF) Read (HTML)
"Rachel on her fathers death"(mp3) Listen Read (PDF) Read (HTML)
"Rachel on her Grandfathers"(mp3) Listen Read (PDF) Read (HTML)
"Rachel on her fathers "(mp3) Listen Read (PDF) Read (HTML)
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