Brother Man

                                      ROGER MAIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY

                                                        

 

 Roger Mais was born to a middle class family in Kingston Jamaica on the 11th Auguust1905 and was deceased on the 21st June 1955. In addition, Mais was a novelist, journalist, poet and playwright. In the year 1951, Roger had won ten first prizes in the West Indian Literacy Competion.

           Mais has published over a hundred short stories, where most can be found in Public Opinion and Focus. He also published several novels namely The Hill Were Joyful Together (1953) which is written in the style of a depiction of slum life, portraying the upset of poverty in these yards. Also, Brother Man  (London, Cape, 1954) stood as a statement of protest, and also a major contributor to a nativist aesthetic. The nove is situated in Kingston's slums. It portrays the daily condition to poverty of the society.

What does the critics say about the book Brother Man?

In West Indian literature there is little support for aesthetic ideals like ‘Art for Art’s Sake’. Not in Jamaica at any rate. The overshadow of slavery and colonisation, the ongoing status as a Third World country increasingly dependent on tourism—foreigners spending their shiny, shiny foreign cash—as the agricultural sector weakens, the tragically high crime rates, the political corruption closely tied to the criminal elements, the brain drain to the developed world, this reality is not conducive to vibrant discussions on whether art can and should be its only reason for being.
All Jamaican literature is studied in the New Historicism style (of which post-colonial/postcolonial is an extension in my eye, with the emphasis on studying the text within historical/political frames). This lead naturally, perhaps, from the fact that Jamaican literature of any prominence had engaged with Jamaica’s colonial past, the political culture and sociological problems. I do not find fault with this tactic as long as it is the art form primarily which compels the artist to create, whether it is in the literary, visual or performing arts. If her primary obligation is to any kind of activist aims which just happen to be packaged in a poem for example, the art must then suffer. It is dead before it arrives and only has the possibility of reaching the converted, the people who already support whatever agenda she is peddling.

Religious aspects that regards to Rastafarians

Jamaica is the home of Rastafarianism, a religious movement spurred by the beliefs of famous Jamaican Marcus Garvey and inspired by an Ethiopianist reading of the King James Bible. Rastafarian beliefs are Christian, with a Jamaican twist.

Ethiopian Prince (Ras) Tafari is at the center of the religion; Rastafarians believe him to be the messiah. In 1932 Tafari was crowned emperor Haile Selassie. Selassie himself claimed lineage from the biblical Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.