Fred D'Aguiar is prominent among a younger generation of West Indian writers, born either in the Caribbean or in the United Kingdom of Caribbean parents, who have in recent years broadened the literature of contemporary Britain. His talents extend to drama, film, and fiction, but he is primarily a poet, and all his work has been informed by his sense of poetic structure, voice, and metaphor. While the themes of colonial marginalization and racial identity are major in his work, he has been careful to avoid sloganeering and to develop a voice that negotiates the public and the private. In his poetry, historical events and developments, such as the 1492 Columbian encounter, the economic and political devastation of postindependent Guyana, and the migration of hundreds of thousands of West Indians to postwar Britain, are given immediacy through a personal and participant eye. D'Aguiar views the worldwide African diaspora through...