Summary

On an April morning in 1966, torrential rain fell at the Kingston Palisades Airport on the Rasta crowd who came to worship. They have thick manes of dreadlocks and overgrown beards. They came to greet the Ethiopian emperor on his visit to Jamaica, believing he was a reincarnation of God and a symbol of Black liberation. Rastafari people were known as a threat to British colonial rule and although their movement was nonviolent, they were treated as pariahs and often subjected to unfair conditions and prejudices.

The narrator, Safiya, lived with her family by the seaside until she was five in a tiny fishing village called White House. Her parents were both Rastas and disliked the relaxed atmosphere of the seaside town. Her father, Howard, was not born by the sea and never felt at home at White Horse.

Safiya’s parents were both...