Book description
'The funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew.' This
is how W. C. Fields described Bert Williams, the highest-paid
entertainer in America in his heyday and someone who counted the King
of England and Buster Keaton among his fans.
Born in the Bahamas, he moved to California with his family. Too
poor to attend Stanford University, he took to life on the stage with
his friend George Walker. Together they played lumber camps and mining
towns until they eventually made the agonising decision to 'play the
coon'. Off-stage, Williams was a tall, light-skinned man with marked
poise and dignity; on-stage he now became a shuffling, inept 'nigger'
who wore blackface make-up. As the new century dawned they were
headlining on Broadway. But the mask was beginning to overwhelm
Williams and he sank into bouts of melancholia and heavy drinking,
unable to escape the blackface his public demanded.
Caryl Phillips was born in St Kitts and now lives in London and New
York. He has written for television, radio, theatre and cinema and is
the author of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction.
Crossing the River
was shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize and Caryl Phillips has won
the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize, as well as being named the Sunday Times
Young Writer of the Year 1992 and one of the Best of Young British
Writers 1993.
A Distant Shore
won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 2004 and
Dancing in the Dark
was shortlisted in 2006.
