Claude McKay lived and wrote though major movements of the twentieth century: the First World War and its aftermath; the Russian Revolution (and the subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union); the Great Depression (which effectively ruined his literary career); and the Second World War, which eventually gave way to political independence for Europe’s colonies – independence for which McKay agitated but did not see in his lifetime. Throughout these movements McKay was forever a traveller, forever a foreigner, never quite re/finding the Jamaican peasant home he left behind in 1912, nor the Harlem from which he exiled himself in 1922 and to which he reluctantly returned in 1934. Banana Bottom, his final novel published during his lifetime, narrates a young Jamaican woman’s return home from travel and education abroad, this time from the imperial centre...

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Citation: Rodriques, Janelle. "Banana Bottom". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 August 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19571, accessed 13 December 2025.]