The Hoop and the Harm

Author Jawara Pedican brings the vivid authenticity of lived experience in the basketball hotbed of West Indian Toronto to The Hoop and the Harm.
Udoka Clendon is a first-year university student and a product of basketball systems that have produced professional players.
From very young, he’s been pushed relentlessly by his family on a troubling pursuit for an athletic scholarship. He is burdened by expectations and self-doubt. Udoka tries to reignite his passion for the game. Now, he’s been given a final opportunity at the city-wide tournament to rediscover his confidence and his sense of purpose—all of which he fears he has lost forever.
With the clarity and poetic style of a seasoned writer, and drawing on his own time as an elite sports prospect, Jawara Pedican shows the trials and traumas of becoming fixated on a dream of sports stardom.