Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones is the latest publication by Carole Boyce Davies, in which she assesses the activism, writing and legacy of Claudia Jones (1915-64), the pioneering Afro-Caribbean radical intellectual, dedicated communist and feminist. Born in Trinidad, Claudia Jones moved to New York in 1924 and lived there for 30 years. She was active in the Communist Party from her early twenties, travelling across the USA to speak and organise. She was arrested several times and was in prison for neraly a year before being deported and given asylum in the UK in 1955, where she founded the West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News and the Caribbean Carnival. She is buried in Highgate cemetery in London to the left of Karl Marx - a location Boyce Davies finds fitting given her expansion of Marxism-Leninism to incorporate gender and race into her political critique and activism.

Carole Boyce Davies was born in Trinidad and lives in the USA. She is Professor of African Studies, English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. She has published numerous books on black women's writing and on African diaspora studies.