Yesterdays

After years of suffering at the hands of white missionaries trying to convert Trinidadians to Christianity, Poonwa has decided, as payback, to go to Canada and start a Hindu mission. His father, Choonilal, doesn't want to borrow the money Poonwa needs from the corrupt local priest. The whole village gets dragged into the fight, a distraction from the usual arguments over latrines and sexual dalliances. First published in 1974, Yesterdays is a ribald, outrageous portrait of Trinidadian village life, and a prescient proto-parody of what would become the archetypal immigrant story. Sacred cows both literal and figurative are skewered in a series of increasingly absurd encounters between villagers who can't keep their noses – and other body parts – out of their neighbours' business. A foreword by Kevin Jared Hosein contextualizes this important book, which was politically and aesthetically ahead of its time but lost