About
The Author
Horane
Smith was born in 1957, at Yardley Chase in the parish of
St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, home of the famous tourist attraction
Lover’s Leap. Mr. Smith commenced a career in journalism
at the government information bureau, the Agency for Public
information (now the Jamaica information Service) in 1975.
From the API, Mr. Smith moved to Jamaica’s first community
radio station, JBC Radio West, in 1979, where he worked
as a freelance producer and programme producer. In 1980,
Mr. Smith was the recipient of the Jack Anderson Memorial
Scholarship for Journalism awarded by the Press Association
of Jamaica, to study Mass Communication at the University
of the West Indies. Jack Anderson was a veteran Jamaican
journalist and the scholarship is awarded annually to honour
his commitment and dedication to the profession.
After
graduating from UWI, Mr. Smith returned to the Jamaica Broadcasting
Corporation, this time at its Kingston headquarters. He
started there as a freelance writer and moved quickly up
to the rank of Senior News Producer/Reporter/ Editor and
subsequently acted as Assistant Director of Television News.
He was the recipient of the Outstanding Dedication to Duties
Award from the JBC. In 1988, Mr. Smith left full time duties
at JBC to work as Information Assistant at the United States
Embassy in Kingston, where he served as the main contact
between the media and the Embassy. During that time, Mr.
Smith was Consulting Editor to the JBC Newsroom. Mr. Smith
and his family left Jamaica in 1990, to take up residence
in Toronto, Canada.
While in Canada, he continued
his journalism duties, corresponding for JBC-TV and writing
columns for the Jamaica Herald and Dawn newspapers in Canada.
In 1995, he returned to Jamaica on a visit and went to the
famous and legendary tourist attraction, Lover’s Leap,
where he used to play as a young boy. Three months later,
his debut novel,
Lover’s
Leap: Based on the Jamaican Legend
was
written. The novel was published in England, in 1999, to
international acclaim. John Prebble, the late British best-selling
author, well-known for the 1960s box-office hit Zulu, starring
Michael Caine, commented: “I have read it with great
admiration, for not only is it a bitter-sweet story but
a profound comment on a contemporary subject.” Just
before he died in January 2000, Mr. Prebble was asked by
friends what was one of his regrets in life. He responded
that he wouldn’t be around to see the success of four
new writers. Horane Smith was named among them.
Mr.
Smith’s second novel, Underground
to Freedom,
was published in 2000, and the popular
Port Royal in
2001. The
Lynching Stream, his
fourth work of historical fiction, was published in July
2003. Reggae
Silver is
his fifth novel, and was published in 2004. His sixth, Dawn
at Lover’s Leap, the sequel to Lover’s Leap,
will be published in 2005. Mr. Smith has been described
by the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, one of the largest in Canada,
as “no ordinary novelist.” He has been described
by book reviewers as “prolific…going from strength
to strength…an engaging writer...a gripping writer.”
Mr. Smith works for a media monitoring/intelligence firm
in Toronto, where he lives with his wife and four children.
Horane
Smith is the winner of the inaugural Burke’s Books
Literary Awards for his outstanding contribution to African-Canadian
and Caribbean Literature. He is also among the first 100
outstanding Jamaicans to be recognized by the Jamaica Diaspora
Canada Foundation for his contribution to Jamaican literature.
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