Brother Man Hardback - 1954

London: Jonathan Cape , 1954. 191pp. B/w Frontispiece & Drawings. Dust marks to top edge. Ffep has small portion of upper edge neatly removed. Contents clean, binding square and firm. DJ has price intact, minor wear to spine tips and corners with foxing on the reverse and rear panel, small tear to lower front corner, corner tips of the flaps have been clipped (both on front flap, top only on rear flap), dj now protected in removable cover. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. Illus. by The Author. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall.

From Wikipedia: Brother Man (1954) is a novel by Jamaican author and journalist Roger Mais about a Christ-like wise-man and folk Rastafarian healer, 'Bra' Man' (in dialect) John Power. The book is significant as the first serious representation of the Rastafari Movement in literature. Mais foresaw the defining power of the Rasta movement to Jamaican society 20 years before the era of Bob Marley and Reggae mainstream.[1]

It is also significant as an exploration of life in the Ghetto of Kingston. It shows how the people relate to leaders, seeing them as God-like or magic depending on their own views, but not hesitating to be overcome by mass bias and discrimination if they believe a leader has failed in any way. The novel is written in prose with a layout that is seemingly cinematic and episodic; little is done to describe the environment beyond the claustrophobic ghetto of 'The Lane' in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica.[