The Polished Hoe: 20th Anniversary Edition

…brilliantly written dialogue, a rich, dancing patois that fills out the dimensions of the island's painful history and its complex caste system. Publishers Weekly

An utterly extraordinary and thoroughly compelling tragedy of Shakespearean scope…stunning and heart-rending…it ought to be both widely read and deeply remembered. Globe and Mail

An unqualified masterpiece. Toronto Star

…The Polished Hoe is a remarkable achievement. Its story is obviously deeply felt… The London Free Press

It's an undeniably ambitious work...the story unfolds over one evening--which actually spans a lifetime... It was long past the time when Austin Clarke should have been acknowledged as one of Canada's most important and most accomplished writers. Kitchener-Waterloo Record

…a wonderful book to meander through… Quill & Quire

an incredible panorama of the post-colonial experience…an impressive work by a highly accomplished Canadian author deserved of recognition indeed. Toronto's Women's Newspaper

…extremely ambitious…compulsively readable and challenging at the same time…This is an unforgettable novel. Edmonton Journal

There's a mesmerizing stillness to Austin Clarke's latest novel The New York Times

The Polished Hoe is a magnificent, breath-taking plunge into the secret depths of human relations…Clarke is a master at capturing the flavour and nuance of language and weaving its local intricacies into universal stories. Wayne Grady, Ottawa Citizen

Austin Clarke's latest novel, The Polished Hoe, is that rare creation that soars above the earth to become more than the sum of its parts. Books in Canada

Respect to Tindal Street Press for bringing to the UK this soaring and sorrowful novel of Caribbean life . . . The novel's language proves as lush, seductive - and dangerous - as its landscape

Independent

An extraordinary tale of lust and oppression . . . a beautiful light-skinned "black" woman [is] forced by the ambition of her mother and the sexual appetite of her colonial master to live a dangerous double life as beneficiary and plaything of a society steeped in racial cruelty

The Times

A richly crafted novel which eludes, defies categories; it is variously wistful and agonising, ironic and sensual; a tragic tale, relentlessly wrought

2003 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Jury Citation