About the Book

The Friendship of Shoes goes back to early pioneers of Caribbean storytelling like Samuel Selvon and V.S. Naipaul for its inspiration. There are strong characters, humor and stories within stories. The Caribbean experience is explored wherever its people can be found: in the city of New York or on the coastal lands of Guyana, in NY public school classrooms or the streets of Kingston, Jamaica. This new collection opens the doors for readers to discover once again the marvelous potential of the Caribbean imagination. Using familiar techniques of kinetic prose and precise observation Williams follows his characters as they join the movement of people around the globe. The Caribbean experience remains his focus. A teacher must try to adjust to the realities of New York city classrooms. A businessman returns to his island and finds the turmoil in the streets has crept into his soul. In this new collection stories within stories reveal the characters’ struggle with old fixations and new feelings about themselves and their place in the world.

About the Author

N.D. Williams grew up in Guyana, studied at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica and now lives in New York. His short stories have been published in several anthologies. His first novel, “Ikael Torass”, won the 1976 Casa de las Americas prize for fiction.