Eric Walrond (1898-1966) wrote only one book in his life (and that, at the age of 28): Tropic Death, a collection of poetic, visceral, and lushly written short stories.

Born in Guyana, Walrond lived for a time in Harlem, New York City, before moving to London where he died in 1966.

Tropic Death is described as a book of stories that "viscerally charts the days of men working stone quarries or building the Panama Canal, of women tending gardens and rearing needy children. Early on addressing issues of skin color and class, Walrond imbued his stories with a remarkable compassion for lives controlled by the whims of nature."

The following sentence best illustrates the beauty and violence of Walrond's writing style: "A ram-shackle body, dark in the ungentle spots exposing it, jogged, reeled and fell at the tip of a white bludgeon. Forced a dent in the crisp caked earth. An isolated ear lay limp and juicy, like some exhausted leaf or flower, half joined to the tree whence it sprang. Only the sticky milk flooding it was crimson, crimsoning the dust and earth."

An early Walrond anthology also available, Winds Can Wake Up the Dead.