The Dragon Can't Dance

The Dragon Can't Dance is a 1979 novel by Trinidadian author Earl Lovelace, set in a slum of Port of Spain. The novel centers on the life of Aldrick Prospect, a man who spends the entire year recreating his dragon costume for Carnival. Aldrick's interactions with other people who live in his neighbourhood (including Fisheye, a local hoodlum, and Pariag, a rural Indian who moves to the city to get away from his familial heritage) form the backdrop for their individual struggles for self-definition in a society dominated by its racial divisions and colonial legacies. The story culminates when Aldrick and Fisheye, along with a small number of followers, hijack a police van and take two police officers hostage. The events surrounding the hostage-taking, and the aftermath of the event lead the reader on a journey through the colonial psyche, and expose the deep seated problems of a society that still has not reconciled itself with its colonial past and racial divisions.