Cover Reveal! Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle
We here at Spine are delighted to reveal the cover for Alex Wheatle’s new novel, Cane Warriors.
Andersen Press will publish Cane Warriors by Guardian Prize-winning author Alex Wheatle in October 2020. Revealing the cover the first time, it features Golden Harvest, a screen-print created by the late Althea McNish in 1959.
Design: Jack Noel
The book centres on Tacky’s War, a real-life slave uprising against British sugar plantation masters in 1760. Alex Wheatle describes the inspiration behind the book: “On Remembrance Sunday every year, the UK honours its fallen dead from the First and Second World Wars and other significant wars. With Cane Warriors, I wanted to honour my ancestry and our glorious dead. I wanted to lend power to their voices and realise them on the page.”
Alex Wheatle - photo courtesy of Andersen Press
“I would like my children’s children to learn about the mighty cane warriors just as they read about Richard the Lionheart, Joan of Arc and Queen Elizabeth I repelling the Spanish Armada. I want to bring their untold story to the world so they will be recognised as freedom fighters and the heroes that they without question were.” On using Althea McNish’s art, Alex continues, “Althea’s art really captures visually the themes of rage, anger and hot-blooded courage of my characters. I feel very proud that her work graces the cover.”
Althea McNish was born in Trinidad in 1924, and came to Britain as a student in the 1950s, where she studied at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts and then the Royal College of Art. Golden Harvest was inspired by a visit to rural Essex, where McNish went walking amongst the sunlit wheatfields with her sketchbook. It reminded her of the sugar plantations of her home, and she produced the design in a series of bright, tropical colours. Golden Harvest became her most celebrated work, reproduced as a bestselling fabric. She worked as a designer for famous companies such as Liberty and Heals, and her art was featured in fashion magazines across Europe throughout the 1960s and 70s. Today McNish is seen as a key figure in Black British art and design. She died in 2020, aged 95.
On designing the book, Jack Noel, Andersen Press’ Art Director for Fiction adds “This is a searing, brilliant and truly important book and so we sought the work of a truly important artist for the cover. Althea McNish infused all of her work with the heat of her Caribbean homeland. The piece we have used – Golden Harvest – was licensed from the V&A archives, and fit the bill completely. In one pattern it holds beauty, chaos, intensity and passion. It fits the story so well. We knew we wanted something graphic in the background, with bold, urgent lettering that fit the themes in the story. There’s something about the beauty of the setting with what happened we hope translates into the cover design, made possible by Althea’s incredible print.”
Full cover
Cane Warriors will be published in hardback, 1st October 2020, priced £10.99.
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.