The Madman in this House by Ishaq Imruh Bakari

Ishaq Imruh Bakari’s fourth collection begins with the story of the ‘Negro of Banyoles’, whose stuffed remains were displayed in European museums for nearly 170 years, and ends with a celebration of the life and music of the Jamaican jazz-musician Coleridge Goode. In between, the book explores the histories, geographies and the ironic ‘impossibility’ of being black in our time.  From Grenfell, Guantanamo and Gaza, to the monsters of empire and neoliberalism selling their ‘tar baby promises’ of freedom, The Madman in this House is a book about resistance to colonialism in the twenty-first century.