The young narrator of "The Intended" is twelve when he leaves his
village in rural Guyana to come to England. There, he is abandoned
into social care, but with great determination and self-discipline
seizes every opportunity to follow his aunt's farewell advice, 'but
you must take education...pass plenty exam' and wins a scholarship
to Oxford. With an upper-class white fiancee, he has unquestionably
arrived, but at the cost of ignoring the other part of his aunt's
farewell: '...you is we, remember you is we.' Through remembering
his Guyanese childhood and youth in working class Balham, the
narrator's older self explores the contradictions, the difficulties
implicit in his aunt's advice and the cost to his personality of
losing that past. At one level a moving semi-autobiographical
novel, "The Intended" is also a sophisticated postcolonial text
with its echoes of 'Heart of Darkness', its play between language
registers and its exploration of the instability of identity. As an
Indo-Guyanese, the narrator finds himself seen as 'Paki' by the
English, and as some mongrel hybrid by 'real' Asians from India and
Pakistan; as sharing a common British 'Blackness', yet acutely
conscious of the real cultural divisions between Guyanese of
African and Indian origins.
General
Imprint: |
Peepal Tree Press Ltd
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
November 2005 |
First published: |
August 2005 |
Authors: |
David Dabydeen
|
Dimensions: |
215 x 135 x 15mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
176 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-84523-013-5 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
1-84523-013-2 |
Barcode: |
9781845230135 |
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