&sq=&lang=&file=File:NewDayNovel.jpg) First edition | |
| Author | V. S. Reid |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical novel |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | 1949 |
| Publication place | Jamaica |
| Media type | |
New Day is a 1949 book by Jamaican author V. S. Reid. It was Reid's first novel. New Day deals with the political history of Jamaica as told by a character named Campbell, who is a boy at the time of the Morant Bay Rebellion (in 1865) and an old man during its final chapters. It may have been the first novel to use Jamaican vernacular as its language of narration.[1]
Reid employed the Jamaican dialect as a springboard for creating a distinctive literary variant and for achieving a greater depth in the English language.[2] Reid was motivated to write New Day by his discontentment with how the leaders George William Gordon and Paul Bogle of the Morant Bay Rebellion (1865) were depicted in the foreign press; by reworking as characters in his novel those who had been negatively portrayed as rebels, he aimed to refute what he viewed as unfair misrepresentations of history.[3] The Morant Bay uprising also provided the historical backdrop for a number of works written by Reid's literary counterparts, most notably fellow Jamaican writer Roger Mais. Mais's 1938 play George William Gordon also functioned to repair the historical figure Gordon, who had been portrayed as a villain in prevailing narratives of colonialism, as a martyr and hero for Jamaican nationalism.[4] On its release, Reid's fictional and historical narrative was well received by the literary audience and "caught hold of people's imagination in a kind of way that [Reid] couldn't imagine would happen in Jamaica."[3]
- ^ Morris, Mervyn. "Introduction" to V. S. Reid's New Day. Caribbean Writers Series 4. Kingston & London: Heinemann, 1973.
- ^ Cooke, Michael G., "V. S. (Vic) Reid", Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 125: Caribbean and Black African Writers, second series. Detroit: Gale Research, 1993, pp. 256–60.
- ^ a b Reid, V. S. (1 May 1986), "The Writer & His Work: V. S. Reid". Edited transcript of a talk given by Vic Reid in the Caribbean Seminar Series of the Faculty of Arts at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies.
- ^ Philp, Geoffrey (11 August 2008). "Happy Birthday, Roger Mais". Retrieved 15 March 2021.