AS worries about the tone of AC’s latest letters and proposes remedies. They discuss the intricacies of literary fellowships and grants and the prospects for forthcoming West Indian literary works.

AC recounts "heavy shit at Yale." Written during the 1970 protests on Yale's campus in support of the Black Panther movement amidst a wave of repression and reprisals, Clarke expresses admiration at (and consternation with) the tone and exercise of the protests.

AS laments the state of politics, which “want dismantle […] like Capitalism […] that so ol’ and creaking that is only guns and bombs can keeping it struggling on” and offers the thought that the world is “asking for new forms” (but also sends Marxism up as unfit for Black liberation in its current form). Gossips about political developments with Eric Williams and Stokely Carmichael.

AC, finding a quiet moment to himself, writes to AS very early on Christmas morning to send greetings. He recounts a recent meeting with Toni Morrison and looks forward expectantly to Virginia ham for Christmas supper.

AS sends AC a heartfelt message of thanks for AC’s Christmas missive. He offers wry and wondering meditations on watching his sons grow up politically and racially aware in the "stark, cold northern reality" of 1970s Britain.

AS is openly furious with AC for complaining about a delayed reply to the latter’s correspondence. The language is colourful in the extreme and provides glimpses into AS’s daily life and work. Ismith Khan has offered AS a lecturership at UCSD; AS points out that AC has never come through for him in this way!

AC blithely smoothes over the feathers he ruffled in his last letter, not least with an offer of hospitality in Toronto. He concludes wishing AS "salaam […] and love."

AS congratulates AC on his recent appointment as Acting General Manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (but chides him for being evasive on this subject during a recent visit). Writes: “Make the people get some radio, for the first time in their lives. Make it beautifully accessible. Make it truly people’s radio and television. Give them an image of themselves back in the voices and faces you project in the broadcasting. Nothing works so well for the people, at large, than to give them back an image of themselves in sound and image.”

AC describes life at the CBC, whose British-trained functionaries possess a "neo-colonialistic approach to broadcasting and to themselves" which he aims to rectify. He laments that his travels, and this war to change the CBC's culture, have left him weary; he promises more letters soon.

AC writes a very understated letter to inform AS that he has just won the Casa de las Americas prize for "Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack." Enquires, in a roundabout way, whether Salkey's connections in Cuba might facilitate a visit.