A Kind Of Truth

I was surprised the other day reading Farrukh Dhondy's Come To Mecca by just how much I enjoyed all six of the stories. When I first read the collection some three decades ago I found it interesting in a worthy kind of way but a bit hard going. This time round I raced through most of it in a day, admiring the vigour of the writing and the sense of celebration of multi-cultural Britain involved, despite the moments of despair and uncertainty.

The second story, Two Kinda Truth, particularly struck me as a minor classic. I'm not entirely sure just how authentic the writer's version of 'black-English' is, or was, but it makes for a great read and says something powerful about poetry and its uses. Not bad going in a collection targeted essentially at a teenage audience.

This is another of my giveaway books, as I make some room on the shelves, and it's been the only one so far that I've had serious second thoughts about keeping - in this case as a possible source for passages to use in the classroom. But I've stayed firm. I just hope it picks up a few more readers. It deserves it.