ABOUT
THE BOOK

Things are not going well for Kwaku, a small time chiseller and ineffective healer in a small Guyanan village: his wife has gone blind, his twin sons brutalise him, he is toppled from his perch as a healer, and becomes the laughing stock of the village. But Kwaku’s fortunes rise again as he makes his way to Georgetown to become a dealer in antique chamber pots. Armed with a recommendation and some cash from the mother of a government minister, he sets out in search of riches, only to end up the lowly servant of the corrupt minister who steals his ideas and uses him to further his financial scams and intrigues. Kwaku faces the dilemma of going under or adapting his character to suit his urban existence. The Ministry of Hope is the sequel to Roy Heath’s Kwaku. The author was born in Guyana and moved to England at the age of 24. He has published several previous works of fiction and is a winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize.