Merle Collins
Auteur de Angel
Œuvres de Merle Collins
Oeuvres associées
Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient… (1992) — Contributeur — 159 exemplaires
The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories: Reissue (Oxford Books of Prose) (1999) — Contributeur — 93 exemplaires
Her True-True Name : an anthology of women's writing from the Caribbean (1989) — Contributeur — 43 exemplaires
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Date de naissance
- 1950-09-29
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- Grenada
- Lieu de naissance
- Aruba
- Lieux de résidence
- St George's, Grenada
England, UK
USA
St Lucia
Jamaica - Études
- Georgetown University
London School of Economics
University of the West Indies - Professions
- oral poet
lecturer
short story writer - Organisations
- African Dawn
Polytechnic of North London
University of Maryland
Membres
Critiques
Listes
Prix et récompenses
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Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 10
- Aussi par
- 8
- Membres
- 154
- Popularité
- #135,795
- Évaluation
- 3.7
- Critiques
- 4
- ISBN
- 17
- Langues
- 1
This book is mostly written in Standard English but various characters also speak varieties of Grenadian Creole English and even Grenadian Creole French. There's more older Creole than I'm used to reading in Caribbean literatures and I was glad of the two page glossary at the back, especially for words of African or Carib or French origin, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to every reader although there's no deliberate obscurity (or obfuscation to use my own specialist vocabulary, lol) by Collins who clearly wants her work to be read as well as being representative. Many scholars consider this text to be a valuable archive of historic language in addition to a historical novel.
In form the novel is divided into chapters and each chapter divided into shorter scenes headed by Creole proverbs. In style and content this reads as much like an oral history collection as a novel, which is intentional on the author's part, with the structure following three generations of women in one family: through ageing and death, through motherhood, and through growing up and coming of age, through Independence from Britain, through the revolution, and through the US invasion.
The conclusion of the book is, of course, not happy: that Grenada doesn't count as a country with its own borders because economics dictate people must work abroad, and because the US (or any larger power) can impose its will through military or economic violence at any time it pleases; that those (men) who fight their way into leadership positions are often either destructively corrupt or destructively egotistical; that if only the chickens would work together as a flock then the chickenhawks would go home hungry more often than not, but chickens scatter by instinct and have to be taught their best hope is mutual aid. 4.5*
Quotes
Bush: "When she looked up, the other trees around had started rustling too as the breeze got stronger. She lowered her eyes, left them to their conversation, and went on inside."
Proverb: "Never trouble trouble until trouble trouble you."
Poverty ("caan" = can't): "'Well is so it is!' Cousin Maymay said, 'We caan let one another sink. Is you, is me. We ha hol one another up!'"
Education ("djab" = diables = devils): "We did just know bout Britain an we feel British, so we great! Poor djab us!"
Chickens and chickenhawks ("caan" = can't): "'Allyou self too stupid,' she said to the fowls, 'Don run when they try to frighten you. Stay together an dey caan get none!'"… (plus d'informations)