City of Spades

London, 1957. Victoria Station is awash with boat trains discharging hopeful black immigrants into a cold and alien motherland. Liberal England is about to discover the legacy of Empire. And when Montgomery Pew, assistant welfare officer in the Colonial Department, meets Johnny Fortune, recently arrived from Lagos, the meeting of minds and races takes a surprising turn.

Colin MacInnes gives London back to the people who create its exciting sub-culture. Hilarious, anti-conventional, blisteringly honest and fully committed to younth and vitality, City of Spades is a unique and inspiring tribute to a country on the brink of change.



A talented off-beat journalist and social observer, Colin MacInnes is best known for his trilogy of London novels which includes

Absolute Beginners as well as

City of Spades and

Mr Love and Justice. He also wrote about the allied occupation of Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, in

June in Her Spring and

England, Half English. He died of cancer in 1976. Since his death his best essays, fiction and journalism have been published in various collections.