On Thursday 11th February (7.45pm) our guest speaker will be Simon Lister who’ll be joining us to talk about his book Fire in Babylon: How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet

Simon Lister

Fire in Babylon was inspired by the film of the same name and its director Stevan Riley specifically invited Simon to write the book which has received excellent reviews and was shortlisted for the prestigious 2015 William Hill Sports Book of the Year.

Simon’s book explores the story of the West Indies which had always had brilliant cricketers but hadn’t always had brilliant cricket teams. However in 1974 Clive Lloyd began to lead the side which would finally throw off the shackles that had hindered the region for centuries. Nowhere else had a game been so closely connected to a people’s past and their future hopes; nowhere else did cricket liberate a people like it did in the Caribbean.

For nearly 20 years Clive Lloyd and then Viv Richards led the batsmen and bowlers who changed the way cricket was played and changed the way a whole nation – which existed only on a cricket pitch – saw itself.

With their pace like fire and their scorching batting, these sons of cane-cutters and fishermen brought pride to a people which had been stifled by 300 years of slavery, empire and colonialism. Their cricket roused the Caribbean and antagonised the game’s traditionalists.

Told by the men who made it happen and the people who watched it unfold, Fire in Babylon is the definitive story of the greatest team that sport has known.

‘I doubt there will be a better book written about this period in West Indies cricket history.’ – Clive Lloyd

Signed copies of Fire in Babylon will be available for purchase on the night.

Hope you can join us for what promises to be an unmissable talk

You can follow Simon on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ListerProd