Capturing the silent rage

One late night, I sat for three hours and read this book cover to cover. I could not move. The novella is Imani Tafari-Ama’s imaginative conjuring of fiction from facts too gruesome to be believed and too horrific to remain hidden.

It is hard to believe that there seems to be no previous review of this powerful book, first published in May 2014, just four years after what is politely called the ‘The Tivoli (Gardens) Incursion’. The violence, which largely took place in May 2010, saw at least 73 civilians killed, many wounded, over 500 arrested while four soldiers and police were also killed as the armed forces fought gunmen in the tight-knit Tivoli Gardens community of west Kingston. The intention was to arrest Christopher Coke (aka Dudus), wanted for extradition to the US and also to break open the fortress that Tivoli Gardens had become, a veritable state-within-a-state, the ‘mother of all garrisons’.

Imani, who had some 10 years earlier conducted her PhD research in Southside, an area nearby, was well-placed to understand the brutal reality on the ground behind the headlines. Her book is a very real and raw picture of Jamaica’s inner-city life. It pulls no punches ... it is powerful, revealing, disturbing, uplifting ... tells the sequence of events in 2010 and much, much more.

The book captures ‘the silent rage which seethed in emotional cauldrons, like a time bomb, waiting to explode’- just like the mortars fired into the community. It was nothing less than a war spread over four long days and dark nights, the lights having been turned off to assist the soldiers and police as they broke down doors, abused young and old alike, women as well as men. The bullets were one thing – the trauma, especially for the children, went deeper.

Imani’s novella is fictional only in its detail. Everything told happened many more times than could be fitted into this small volume. A harrowing and haunting outpouring but necessary given the need for a politics that would create a less divided, better-provisioned nation, one in which community benefactors such as Christopher Coke would not be looked to for protection and support.

Imani uses the book’s characters to also express several aspects of her own proclivities centring on the need for justice and compassion. But immediately compelling is the intensity of the story-telling. Well worth the read.

Title: Up for Air: This Half Has Never Been Told!

Author: Imani M. Tafari-Ama

Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing 2014 / Amazon Kindle

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