Augustown
{{short description|Novel by Kei Miller}}
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| name = Augustown
| image = Augustown_UK_2016_edition.jpeg
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| caption = 2016 UK edition of Augustown
| author = Kei Miller
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| country = United Kingdom
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| set_in = Jamaica
| publisher = Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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| pub_date = 2016
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| awards = OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
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Augustown is a 2016 novel by Jamaican writer Kei Miller.{{cite news|last1=Grant|first1=Colin|title=Augustown by Kei Miller review – a vivid modern fable about Jamaica|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/08/augustown-kei-miller-review-novel-jamaica|accessdate=28 May 2017|work=The Guardian|date=8 July 2016}} Augustown was published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2016 and by Pantheon Books in the US.{{cite news|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kei-miller/augustown/|title=AUGUSTOWN by Kei Miller|date=March 7, 2017|work=Kirkus Reviews|language=en-us|accessdate=28 May 2017}} It is Miller's third novel; he is also a poet.
Plot
The book is based on an historical incident from 1921 in which Baptist preacher Alexander Bedward told congregants he would physically fly up to heaven; instead he was committed to an insane asylum. In Miller's reimagining, however, the preacher proves able to fly and people gather in the impoverished neighborhood of Augustown to see the miracle for themselves.{{cite news|last1=Anderson|first1=Sam|date=23 May 2017|title=New Sentences: From ‘Augustown,’ by Kei Miller|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/magazine/new-sentences-from-augustown-by-kei-miller.html?_r=0|accessdate=28 May 2017}}
Reception
Reviewing Augustown for The New Yorker, Laura Miller contrasts the book to "the stereotype of a 'poet’s novel'—that is, it isn’t introspective, replete with long passages of description, and scant of plot. Instead, it is stuffed with the characters and stories of hardscrabble Augustown, a former hamlet on the outskirts of St. Andrew founded by slaves freed in 1838."{{cite news|last1=Miller|first1=Laura|title=A Novel of the Sacred and the Profane in Jamaica|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/22/augustown-a-novel-of-the-sacred-and-the-profane-in-jamaica|accessdate=28 May 2017|work=The New Yorker|date=May 22, 2017}}
In 2017, Augustown won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.[http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20170429/news/jcan-kei-miller-wins-ocm-bocas-prize "J’can Kei Miller wins OCM Bocas prize"], Trinidad Sunday Express, 29 April 2017.[https://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2017-04-29/jamaican-kei-miller-wins-ocm-bocas-prize "Jamaican Kei Miller wins OCM Bocas Prize"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170505161523/http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2017-04-29/jamaican-kei-miller-wins-ocm-bocas-prize |date=2017-05-05 }}, Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, 30 April 2017.