Banjo

Harlem Renaissance author Claude McKay's semi-autobiographical novel about Black former dockworkers living in France, freshly repackaged for the Union Square & Co. Signature Editions line.   On the waterfronts of 1920s Marseille, Lincoln Agrippa Daily, known as “Banjo,” and his group of fellow unemployed Black seamen navigate daily lives filled with joy and camaraderie: playing music in local cafés and bars, looking for women, brawling, and talking about their former homes in Africa, the West Indies, or the American South. However, Banjo’s driftless existence begins to find meaning again when he meets a writer named Ray who helps him rediscover his African roots. Praised by author Aimé Césaire for its depiction of Black characters “truthfully, without inhibition or prejudice," Banjo is a picturesque novel highlighting the diverse vibrance of the Black diasporic experience.

Claude McKay (1890–1948) was a Jamaican American writer and poet who was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote several collections of poetry, novels, short stories, non-fiction, and two autobiographical books, and is best known for his poem "If We Must Die" and his first novel, Home to Harlem.