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What Happened To Him
Kundu: Prince of Riverton City is a coming-of-age tale that centers around a young man with albinism living in poverty-stricken Jamaica. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
From age 6 to 9, I lived in Waterhouse, a volatile part of Kingston, Jamaica. There were daily skirmishes over territory between warring political gangs, year-round. There was a boy about my age who lived in the house directly across from the one-bedroom house my family rented. We never spoke, but his grandmother would always yell at him for various things.
As a child, and even now as an adult, I find myself wondering what happened to him. Did he get out of Waterhouse? Was he a doctor now? Was he even alive?
I will never know the answers to those questions, so I created a life for him.
What kind of research did you do for this novel to ensure you captured the essence of the story’s theme?
I needed to research significant events in Jamaica in 1980. It was an election year as well as a time of natural disasters and political warfare.
I sourced archival reports from the Jamaica Gleaner Newspaper and reports from the local police department. I also visited Jamaica six times in two years. I found myself driving on the outskirts of Riverton City at night, which wasn’t a good idea: it still remained a dangerous place to be.
I enjoyed the depth of the main character, Kundu. What was your process to bring that character to life?
I have a theory that everyone – every character – has felt like an outsider at some point in their lives: You’re short, have an odd accent, skinny, old, bald, dark skin, thick glasses. The character has to fight and grow if they are to live. I wanted Kundu to wear his peculiarity on his skin.
His difference is obvious, but his sameness, his empathy, his loyalty, bleeds through. To create Kundu, I imagined being odd, or different to everyone.
Emotionally, I had to make space for my twelve-year-old self.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m not 100% sure, but the second book of a Kundu trilogy could be next. Targeting the winter of 2026.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
In an atmosphere of incessant turf wars, classism, political skirmishes, colonialism, incest, and gang violence, Kundu is forced to make adult decisions too early in his teen life; in the process he will lose friends, family, and some of his own dreams.
Kundu: Prince of Riverton City
Kundu: The Prince of Riverton City is a powerful coming-of-age story set against the brutal, lively backdrop of Riverton City, Jamaica. Courtney Ffrench paints a vivid world where survival is a daily fight and childhood innocence is a fragile, flickering thing. We follow young Kundu, a pale-skinned, purple-eyed boy navigating a garbage-laden, violence-soaked community, all while trying to find his place, his people, and maybe a little hope. From the first scene at Shotta’s Ball, where gunshots and ghost stories blur together to desperate kite-flying sessions by the dump, the story pulls you into the grime, the beauty, and the heartache of a forgotten place.
Ffrench doesn’t sugarcoat a single thing. The author’s writing style is raw, sentences clipped, observations sharp. When Kundu, Lorraine, and Leon sneak past men firing AK-47s into the air, I could feel the gravel digging into my knees. It wasn’t just described; it grabbed me by the collar and shoved me down in the mud with them. That rough, close-to-the-ground style made the world feel dangerous, loud, and alive. The scene where they run from the ghost-like woman in white gave me goosebumps, not because it was supernatural, but because it was too real.
Then there’s Kundu himself. I loved him, and my heart broke for him. His albinism isolates him in a brutal society where being different is dangerous. The way kids casually call him “Ghost” and how even grown-ups view him with suspicion is gutting. There’s a scene later, when Lorraine sings “Hill and Gully Rider” while they search the Sandy Gully for their missing friend, and Kundu just trails behind, silent, it crushed me. Ffrench nails the quiet loneliness of being an outsider without ever turning Kundu into a sob story. He’s stubborn, he’s brave, he’s a kid trying to build a kite out of trash in a world falling apart.
Ffrench weaves in these small, bright stitches of humanity: the fierce loyalty between Kundu, Lorraine, and Leon; Madda Tee’s patient, practical love (especially when she stirs that cornmeal porridge while talking about missing kids like it’s just another part of the day); the slapstick panic of dodging Jomo the mad dog. There’s something magical in how people in Riverton City find ways to laugh, to dance, to live, even with death sitting next door. When Kundu and Lorraine find a dead baby hidden in a freezer, it’s brutal, but the fact that they care says so much about the scraps of decency they’re fighting to keep.
I loved this book. It’s rough and sometimes painful, but it’s also full of fight and beauty. Courtney Ffrench doesn’t waste words or pretend things are prettier than they are. Kundu: Prince of Riverton City would be a great read for anyone who loves coming-of-age stories that don’t flinch, or readers who want to see life through a lens they might never have dared to look through before. It’s perfect for people who aren’t afraid to get a little mud on their shoes and maybe a little blood on their hearts.
Pages: 243 | ASIN : B0DJHGWM6H
LITERARY TITAN 