Ameena Gafoor’s Aftermath of Empire explores Roy Heath’s place in Caribbean literature

By Al Creighton On In Arts on Sunday |
The cover of Aftermath of Empire: The Novels of Roy AK Heath,[Ameena Gafoor, Aftermath of Empire: The Novels of Roy AK Heath, Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2017. 256 pp.]
The cover of Aftermath of Empire: The Novels of Roy AK Heath,[Ameena Gafoor, Aftermath of Empire: The Novels of Roy AK Heath, Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2017. 256 pp.]

In the summer of 2011, I felt deeply honoured when I was asked to deliver the Inaugural Roy AK Heath Lecture at the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick. The title of that lecture was ‘Aspects of Indian Culture in the Caribbean: The Impact of Theatrical Traditions, Cultural Change and the Popular Culture’.

There were two reasons why that subject was considered fitting. The first was that it was also the keynote address of an international conference on Indo-Caribbean Culture and Literature, hosted by the university. The institution seemed to have thought, with good reason, that the two events – the Memorial Lecture and the Opening of the Conference – could profitably have been put together.