Fiction. Afro-Caribbean Studies. "Pollard's brilliant language, her moving evocation of Jamaican places, events, and lives, [drives] her account of the quest of the archetypal bright Jamaican male for identity and manhood"--Daryl Cumber Dance. Karl is intelligent and reaps the rewards of his determined hard work through success. Yet, his social climbing leads to a place of rootlessnes and mental Ochaos' as Pollard's use of language flashes musically and incisively in turn tracing Karl's quest for identity and manhood in Jamaican society that is riddled with social issues. Karl's reprieve is poignantly narrated. Velma Pollard is a retired Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Pollard is a widely published author, essayist and poet. Her poetry collections include The Best Philosophers I Know Can't Read and Write (2001). Karl won the prestigious Casa de las Americas Award, 1992; this is a republication of that work.

Velma Pollard was born in Jamaica in 1937, educated at Excelsior High School in Kingston and at the University College of the West Indies. She received an MA in Education from McGill University and an MA in the teaching of English from Columbia University. She taught in high schools and universities in Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana and the USA. Since 1975 she has taught at the University of the West Indies, Mona. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Language Education and Dean of the Faculty of Education of the University of the West Indies. She has always written. She won her first prize for a poem at the age of seven, but none of her work went beyond her desk until 1975 when encouraged by her sister Erna Brodber and others, notably Jean D'Costa who sent one of her stories to Jamaica Journal, she started sending pieces to journals in the region. She published Crown Point and Other Poems and Shame Trees Don't Grow Here with Peepal Tree in 1988 and 1992 respectively. Considering Woman, a collection of prose pieces was published by The Women's Press in 1989. Her novella Karl won the Casa de las Americas in 1992. Her monograph, Dread Talk - the Language of the Rastafari was published in 1994 by Canoe Press. She has also edited several anthologies of writing for schools. She is the mother of three children.