McKenzie describes this work as 'the result of one philosopher's response to ten West Indian novels' (ix). As a philosopher and an academic, the author is concerned to develop and promote Caribbean philosophy and it is therefore fitting that much of the introduction is taken up with a defence of his approach. His book is not, he asserts, a way of understanding philosophy through the study of literature nor is it a 'philosophy of literature' since, as he rightly claims, this is 'close to what is now called literary theory' (2).