'An important, beautifully written novel about a young man's struggle to come to terms with the actions (and inactions) of his own past. This is one of the best books I have read in a long, long time.' - Jerry Stahl, author of Nein, Nein, Nein!

Nyjah Messado has built a life away from home, but he is haunted not by a ghost, but by a memory: the moment he witnessed a brutal sexual assault and chose silence.

Raised within the rigid masculine codes of an elite Jamaican boys' school, Nyjah learns early what is expected of him: loyalty to other men, contempt for weakness, and the careful management of guilt. Years later, returning to Montego Bay, he must navigate a city shaped by class divisions, colonial legacies and violence, while confronting the moral cost of what he failed to do.

My Own Dear People is a fierce, lyrical coming-of-age novel about masculinity, complicity and self-deception. Unflinching in its treatment of rape culture and homophobia, it asks whether forgiveness, of others, or of oneself, is ever truly possible.

Dwight Thompson is the award-winning author of the novel Death Register and has published short stories in PREE and the Caribbean Writer. He won the Charlotte and Isidor Paiewonsky Prize, was short-listed for the 2012 Small Axe Literary Competition, and was long-listed for the 2021 and 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. My Own Dear People is his second novel. He was born and raised in Jamaica, and currently works at an international school in Hiroshima, Japan.