From the recipient of the 2010 Clifton Fadiman Medal, an
unforgettable novel of one woman's courageous coming-of-age
Powerful, disturbing, stirring, Jamaica Kincaid's novel is the
deeply charged story of a woman's life on the island of Dominica.
Xuela Claudette Richardson, the daughter of a Carib mother and a
half-Scottish, half-African father, loses her mother to death the
moment she is born and must find her way on her own.
Kincaid takes us from Xuela's childhood in a home where she can
hear the song of the sea to the tin-roofed room where she lives as
a schoolgirl in the house of Jack LaBatte, who becomes her first
lover. Xuela develops a passion for the stevedore Roland, who
steals bolts of Irish linen for her from the ships he unloads, but
she eventually marries an English doctor, Philip Bailey. Xuela's is
an intensely physical world, redolent of overripe fruit, gentian
violet, sulfur, and rain on the road, and it seethes with her
sorrow, her deep sympathy for those who share her history, her fear
of her father, her desperate loneliness. But underlying all is "the
black room of the world" that is Xuela's barrenness and
motherlessness. "The Autobiography of My Mother" is a story of
love, fear, loss, and the forging of character, an account of one
woman's inexorable evolution, evoked in startling and magical
poetry.
General
Imprint: |
Farrar Straus Giroux
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
FSG Classics |
Release date: |
May 2013 |
First published: |
May 2013 |
Authors: |
Jamaica Kincaid
|
Dimensions: |
210 x 140 x 18mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
240 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-374-53187-4 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
0-374-53187-0 |
Barcode: |
9780374531874 |
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!