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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Poetry & poets
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The Prisoner's Wife - A Memoir (Paperback)
Loot Price: R364
Discovery Miles 3 640
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The Prisoner's Wife - A Memoir (Paperback)
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Loot Price R364
Discovery Miles 3 640
Expected to ship within 10 - 17 working days
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A haunting, intensely emotional memoir of the middle-class author's
relationship with a man jailed for murder. In lyrical, flowing
prose, columnist and performance poet Bandele (Absence in the Palms
of My Hands, not reviewed) presents piercing portraits of herself,
the man she loves, and a prison system designed to stifle all
sensibility. Growing up in a black, middle-class world of private
schools, summer camps, dance lessons, horseback riding, art
classes, and gymnastics, Bandele is groomed to believe that success
and independence are her birthrights. At 21 she is married in an
expensive, formal June wedding to a highly respected young man. Two
years later her marriage unravels, and the writer finds herself
ardently drawn to a convicted murderer she meets while giving a
poetry reading at an upstate New York prison. While coming to terms
with her role in this unorthodox relationship, which eventually
leads to marriage, Bandele examines with painful honesty a past
riddled with sexual abuse and several suicide attempts following
prolonged depressive episodes. Rashid, the inmate, emerges as a
spiritual, sensitive soul who is also the victim of childhood
brutality. Bandele successfully conveys the callousness of the
prison system, where inmates and their visitors are dehumanized
through strip searches, scrutinizing glances, and insensitive
comments. (Even a passionate conjugal visit is interrupted by a
security count.) While much of the writing deals with feelings, the
writer also dispassionately reports on the redemptive role that
Islam plays in her husband's life as a "code for living, a
structure, a set of rituals, a chart directing him through every
minute of every day." To Bandele, by contrast, it is merely a set
of stifling rules that smother her spirit. "I do not want to be in
a religion where men cannot shake my hand or hug me unless we're
married," she tells Rashid in one of their unresolvable debates.
Mesmerizing and disconcerting, offering insights into why caged
birds sing. (Kirkus Reviews)
As a favor for a friend, a bright and talented young woman volunteered to read her poetry to a group of prisoners during a Black History Month program. It was an encounter that would alter her life forever, because it was there, in the prison, that she would meet Rashid, the man who was to become her friend, her confidant, her husband, her lover, her soul mate. At the time, Rashid was serving a sentence of twenty years to life for his part in a murder. The Prisoner's Wife is a testimony, for wives and mothers, friends and families. It's a tribute to anyone who has ever chosen, against the odds, to love.
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