The first-ever U.S. publication of the Caribbean comic classic, also a major motion picture.

Click here to read Chapter One and see an author photo.

Check out Winkler's others novels, Dog War and The Duppy, also published by Akashic.

"The author never relaxes his hilarious examination of the island's taboos . . . By far the funniest book I've read in a decade, although its ribald atmosphere is sprayed with the pepper-gas of aggressive social satire."
--Washington Post Book World

"Every country (if she's lucky) gets the Mark Twain she deserves, and Winkler is ours, bristling with savage Jamaican wit, heart-stopping compassion, and jaw-dropping humor all at once."
--Marlon James, author of John Crow's Devil

"The Lunatic is a brilliantly written and outrageous Jamaican fable."
--Sunday Gleaner (Jamaica)

"Winkler is the Prozac of literature, the true feel-good factor we seek in Oprah and the likes."
--Ken Bruen, author of The Guards

"The Lunatic is odd, i.e., original, beautiful, and insane, truly unlike any other in its comedy of character and idea, landscape and language; a sensibility that jostles the senses. He pulls the rug out from under you and then helps you land."
--Benjamin Weissman, author of Headless

Aloysius is the village madman, tolerated by neighbors but forced to eke out a living doing odd jobs. His only company are the animals, trees, and bushes of the woodlands in which he resides, on the outskirts of a village in the hills of St. Ann, on the island of Jamaica. Aloysius is lonely. Admittedly, these animals, trees, and especially the bushes have a lot to say, and undeniably, the flame heart tree is a true friend, but Aloysius has no human friends.

Then love, or a peculiar version of it,comes to Aloysius in the form of a solidly built German tourist, Inga Schmidt. Inga encounters a sleeping Aloysius when she is traversing the countryside photographing the island's flora and fauna. Thereafter, to the trees' horror and the bushes' and village's disapproval, Aloysius's world is turned upside down as he finds himself hurtling along in a series of crazy escapades with his newfound love. For Inga, this madman is a revelation. Lunatic or not, Aloysius is capable of satisfying Inga's libido as frequently as she desires. But the romantic idyll is bruised when Inga invites a local butcher to join a menage a trois, and shattered when the trio decides to burgle the house of Busha McIntosh . . .

Along the way, in this outrageously out-of-order, hilarious novel, the reader discovers that madness is by no means restricted to Aloysius: and that goodness and forgiveness may be rarer qualities, found in unexpected places.

Anthony C. Winkler was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1942. His first novel, The Painted Canoe, was published in 1984 to critical acclaim. This was followed by The Lunatic (1987), The Great Yacht Race (1992), Going Home to Teach (1995) and The Duppy (1997, Akashic 2008). A short story collection, The Annihilation of Fish and Other Stories, was published in 2004, and his latest novel, Dog War, will be published by Akashic in June 2007. He has also written two movies, The Lunatic (1991) and The Annihilation of Fish (1999). The Burglary, a play, was produced in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1993 and in Toronto in 2005. Another play, The Hippopotamus Card, was produced in 2005 by the German radio station WDR under the title Das Rhinozerossystem. Winkler lives with his wife in Atlanta, Georgia.