{"title":"Books by Ferdinand Dennis","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781913109837","title":"The Black And White Museum","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom \u003cb\u003eFerdinand Dennis\u003c\/b\u003e, the critically acclaimed author of the novel \u003ci\u003eDuppy Conqueror\u003c\/i\u003e, comes \u003ci\u003eThe Black and White Museum\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of both highly personal and universal short stories. These at their heart reveal the emotional drama of faded love, the loss of individual and shared memory and the wistful longing for home. His stories powerfully portray the black presence in post-Windrush London, with its hurtling gentrification and everyday racism. Ferdinand’s characters gain wisdom and maturity with age but become powerless, as they are less able to change the course of their lives. For some there is the temptation of a return “home” but home, like London, has also moved on and is not the paradise of their memories.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205853249714,"sku":"9781913109837","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781913109837.jpg?v=1786031026"},{"product_id":"9781845236021","title":"Concrete Dreams","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eConcrete Dreams\u003c\/em\u003e tells the gripping story of Lucas Bostock, a Jamaican immigrant who arrives in 1950s London determined to succeed — and to impose his vision of success on his family. A harsh, domineering man, shaped and scarred by survival, Lucas is no one’s idea of a nice man. When his wife Rhoda finally leaves him, taking their only daughter, he’s left to raise their three sons with a mix of toughness, pride, and unrelenting ambition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLucas believes that hard work — on building sites, as a carpenter, and eventually as a landlord — is the only way to protect his family. But as his children grow up and take their own paths through boxing, journalism, politics, retail, and religion, they are forced to reckon with the cost of their father’s influence. Meanwhile, the tenants in his houses add further layers to this vivid portrait of Caribbean-British life, sharing their stories of resistance and renewal in a changing city.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDennis crafts Lucas with remarkable honesty — flawed, often unlikeable, but deeply human. \u003cem\u003eConcrete Dreams\u003c\/em\u003e is both an intimate family saga and a bold exploration of race, masculinity, and generational legacy. It’s a Windrush story, but one that refuses easy narratives, capturing instead the full complexity of Caribbean London and the voices that shaped it—and a narrator determined to tell his own.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308168917365,"sku":"9781845236021","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781845236021_60dcad07-2019-4462-a507-7a06e2b4e780.jpg?v=1786029031"},{"product_id":"9781913109035","title":"Duppy Conqueror","description":"\u003cp\u003eMarshall Sarjeant is born at the beginning of the 20th century in Paradise, Jamaica. As a young man, he is entrusted with a mythical quest to overcome a curse that has been put on his family. He must do this by returning to Africa from where family members were brought as slaves.\u003cbr\u003eMarshall’s journey is a long, taking him first to wartime Liverpool and then, London where he marries and mixes with a clubland crowd of gamblers, musicians and politicians. In Africa, he finds a continent in the turbulent throes of attempting to escape a colonial past. Returning to Paradise, Marshall’s life turns full circle in his epic mission to defeat the duppy, or ghost that started him on his voyage.\u003cbr\u003eIn Duppy Conqueror, first published in 1998, Ferdinand Dennis has created a powerful narrative of the Afro-Caribbean experience\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309291352437,"sku":"9781913109035","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781913109035_03557ab7-5732-409f-88a6-168554a46595.jpg?v=1786031008"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-ferdinand-dennis.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}