The unexpected discovery in 2012 of a completed manuscript of Claude McKay's final novel was hailed by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as 'a major event which dramatically expands the canon of novels written by Harlem Renaissance writers'. Building on the already extraordinary legacy of McKay's life and work, this colourful, dramatic novel centres on the effort by Harlem intelligentsia to organize support for the liberation of Mussolini-occupied Ethiopia, a crucial but largely forgotten event in American history. At once a penetrating satire of political machinations in Depression-era Harlem and a far-reaching story of global intrigue and romance, Amiable with Big Teeth plunges into the concerns, anxieties, hopes and dreams of African-Americans at a moment of crisis for the soul of Harlem.

Author Biography

Claude McKay is widely regarded as one of the most important literary and political writers of the interwar period. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the U.S. in 1912 to study at the Tuskgee Institute. In 1928, he published his most famous novel, Home to Harlem, which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. He also published two other novels, Banjo and Banana Bottom, as well as a collection of short stories, Gingertown, two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home and My Green Hills of Jamaica and a work of non-fiction, Harlem- Negro Metropolis. His Selected Poems was published posthumously, and in 1977 he was named the national poet of Jamaica.