Leon had only bought his Wasp cycle because cycling had been the new craze and all his friends had been taking it up. Two years later however, it was his prized possession and his whole ambition lay on the cycle track. He was consumed, and cycling had become the most precious thing to him. The Games Were Coming chronicles Leon’s life in the three months preceding the Southern Games, held in Marabella, Southern Trinidad. Focused and unwavering, not even the infectious Carnival Spirit which takes hold of Leon’s young brother, Dolphus, nor the advances of Silvia, Leon’s girlfriend, can steer the determined young cyclist away from his preparation for the games. Feeling rejected, Sylvia becomes inextricably involved with another man and resorts to a devious plan involving young Leon to save herself. Set in Michael Anthony’s homeland Trinidad, and written in his trademark simple yet elegant style, this coming of age story has it all: ambition, love and the loss of innocence – all of the angst of that transition to young adulthood, as relevant today as it was when the novel was first published in 1963.
