AshehougAgency

Salt

The year is 1824 and a young African woman throws herself off the cliffs and down into the foaming, salty sea surrounding Jamaica. Five generations later, one of her descendants falls to his knees in the sand right by the same cliff. Incidental circumstances has driven Raphael away from the shantytowns in Kingston, where weapons from CIA and dope from Colombia runs like gasoline through the streets. Destiny has lead him away from the Rasta brothers, from Miss Jude, the spirits, the belief in Haille Selassie and the taste of mango he never managed to capture.

Salt is a humoristic and vivid description of the daily life in a post colonial society ravaged by violence, gloriously mixed with the Rastafarian culture and the belief in spirits, prophets and visions. But most of all is this incredible story about the Rastafarian Raphael.

"Extremely well-told story from modern-time Jamaica"

Hans H. Skei, Aftenposten

First published: Aschehoug Fiction, 2006

Lene Wikander: Bibliography and biography