This is Austin Clarke's acclaimed trilogy about a group of West Indian domestics, their friends, lovers, spouses, and employers living in Toronto. In rich, exuberant language, Clarke illuminates a world inhabited by earthy, garrulous, but terribly isolated people, all living, working and struggling with the alien, White, Canadian culture. Dominated by warm, superbly drawn characters and capped by vibrant, unerring dialogue, The Toronto Trilogy is a devastating and brilliant commentary on the quest for success in North America, and it established Austin Clarke as a major Canadian writer.

Culminating with the international success of The Polished Hoe in 2002, Austin Clarke has published ten novels, six short story collections, and three memoirs in the United States, England, Canada, Australia, and Holland. Storm of Fortune, the second novel in his Toronto Trilogy about the lives of Barbadian immigrants, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award in 1973. The Origin of Waves won the Rogers Communications Writers’ Development Trust Prize for Fiction in 1997. In 1999, his ninth novel,The Question, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. In 2003 he had a private audience with Queen Elisabeth in honour of his Commonwealth Prize for his tenth novel, The Polished Hoe. In 1992 Austin Clarke was honored with a Toronto Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, and in 1997, Frontier College granted him a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1998 he was invested with the Order of Canada, and he has received four honorary doctorates. In 1999 he received the Martin Luther King Junior Award for Excellence in Writing.

Austin Clarke's profile page

"Brilliant is the word for Austin Clarke's depiction of his highly ebullient characters." -Canadian Forum
"Mr. Clarke is masterful." -The New York Times