Auf ein Miniaturbild klicken, um zu Google Books zu gelangen.
Lädt ... Sequins for a Ragged Hemvon Amryl Johnson
Books Read in 2016 (2,057) Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
Gehört zu VerlagsreihenBemerkenswerte Listen
A beautifully atmospheric memoir and travelogue from poet Amryl Johnson depicting her journey from the UK to Trinidad in the 1980s 'Memories demanded that I complete this book. If what I experienced was, in fact, a haunting, I believe I have now laid these ghosts to rest in a style which I hope will satisfy even the most determined ones.' Amryl Johnson came to England from Trinidad when she was eleven. As an adult in 1983, ready for a homecoming, she embarks on a journey through the Caribbean searching for home, searching for herself. Landing in Trinidad as carnival begins, she instantly surrenders to the collective, pulsating rhythm of the crowd, euphoric in her total freedom. This elation is shattered when she finds the house where she was born has been destroyed. She cannot escape - nor wants to - from the inheritance of colonialism. Her bittersweet welcome sets the tone for her intoxicating exploration of these distinct islands. In evocative, lyrical prose Sequins for a Ragged Hem is an astonishingly unique memoir, interrogating the way our past and present selves live alongside one another. Selected by Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo, this series rediscovers and celebrates pioneering books from Black Britain and the diaspora, which remap the nation and reframe our history. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
Aktuelle DiskussionenKeine
Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)910.091821History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography and Travel Geography and Travel History, geographic treatment, biography Areas, regions, places in generalKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
Bist das du?Werde ein LibraryThing-Autor. |
Everything is in a rather diffuse stream-of-consciousness style, so that it isn't always very easy to work out where we are, but that doesn't really matter. Johnson is much more interested in telling us about people and subjective experiences than about "sights" and "culture". Most of the time that works well, she does a very good job of conveying the experience of being a tourist in a place to which you feel you ought to belong, and in giving us some insight into what it must look like from the point of view of the people who live there. A point that really struck me was her observation that at home in the UK she's accustomed to people perceiving her in the first place as a black woman; in the Caribbean the first thing people notice about her (from her speech, the way she interacts, the way she dresses) is that she is an outsider, someone who lives in a wealthier country. Language differences keep coming up: even in Trinidad she has a hard time getting the modulations of speech quite right when she's shopping in the markets.
An aspect of the book that I felt didn't work quite so well was the way she used her worries about the practicalities of travelling as a surrogate to express her deeper discomfort about the problems she was having connecting with the people she met. There are long passages about rickety aircraft and uncomfortable sea passages, and a panic in the last chapters about whether a letter will arrive in time, that felt rather overwrought in context, even though I knew why they were there (and I've had enough travel panics myself...).
But the Carnival levels all boundaries: for the space of a couple of chapters there are steel bands playing "Matilda" non-stop, and she is free to enjoy the spectacle and then tear most of her clothes off and dance in the streets all night without worrying about anything. ( )