"What beautiful language, what beautiful sound. Not a verse without grace, not a verse without lilt and measure. Pamela Mordecai is a wonder, a teller and a burnisher, working the syntax, rhetorical devices and pragmatics of Jamaican language to its perfection." --Dionne Brand "A truly wonderful imaginative creation! In de book of Joseph , part of a 'retelling in Jamaican language of the ancient story of Jesus,' Pamela Mordecai invites the reader into the mind of a Joseph who is active in his community. The carpenter reflects how his work with rockstone make him think of the life struggles of the Israelites, how we joust wid de Roman downpressor for freedom and food. Echoes of Jamaica, of Rastafari, of religion, of life. Pure delight!" --Merle Collins, author of Angel "Mordecai pulls off another miracle of storytelling grace in this last panel of her New Testament triptych. Her Joseph is a man of joys and sorrows, a traveler through the rigorous geography of antique lands, an intimate weaver of the profane and the sacred.

Like his creator, he is a wise wordsmith, blending Jamaican, Hebrew, and Greek in an earthy, playful, sacred, language, enacting 'how a meaning can travel a difference of words like de same tune sound different on flute and psaltery.' De Book of Joseph is a triumph." --Timothy J Reiss, Professor Emeritus, New York University.