Biography

   Biography

Roger Mais was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1905. He was educated at Calabar High School. His first job was in  the Civil Service before moving into a variety of work fields such as a Banana Tallyman, Photographer, lInsurance Salesman and Reporter. In his free time he was a painter, a poet and a versatile prolific writer.
   Roger Mais' literary works include forty plays for both stage and radio, published two collections of short stories and finished eight novels. His works also included writing for the Daily Gleaner and Public Opinion. The Hills Were Joyful Together, a 1953 novel based on his prison experience during the rebellion, and Brother Man, a 1954 novel appraising rastafarianism were two of his most finest novels. But his most critically acclaimed novel was Black Lightning, a 1955 novel highlighting the truth about the Jamaican Society. He died in 1955.

             Critics Claim on Brother Man

According to critics, "Brother Man's significance in Jamaican literature lies in Mais' ability to recognize the potential for a work of  heightened drama in the streets of Kingston. Yet by imposing superstructure of the Christ narrative on a novel about working class Jamaican life, he manages to create sething akin to a morality play that, at the same time, subverts many of the conventional views about blackness and Jamaicaness.  This book was meant for ordinary people to read, enjoy and relish. At the same it was a book that had loftier ambitions,symbolic and poetic ambitions that,thankfully, never got in the way of the sheer pleasure of story-telling.

Religious Aspects of Rastafarianism

  The novel Brother Man represents the first real treatment of Rastafarianism by any fiction writer. Rastafarianism emerging in the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties signifies one of the  important developments to impact Jamaica in the last fifty years. At first, few people  percieved Rastafarians to be a Pseudo-Judaic sect or sometimes a sect of spiritualists or nativistic cult. They were even described as social outcasts and the downtrodden. Mais' curiousity led to the discovery of  the spiritual and intellectual creative impulse among the Rastafarians, clearly understood their deep rooted connection to Africa. With this new understanding of this culture, Mais tried to mould the imagination of Rasatafarians to something of a positive nature. Brother Man depicted the comparison of the life of a Rastafarian to the life of Christ. This idealogical piece of work presented Rastafarianism to a new, pure, devotional and peaceful light.