The Family

ISBN: 0807612456

Author: Emecheta, Buchi

Condition: Used

From Library JournalIn Emecheta's latest novel, complex societal, moral, and emotional issues are played out through the life of young Gwendolen Brillianton. We meet her at age six in a Jamaican mountain village as her father emigrates to London and say good-bye at a triumphant age 16 after she's fought for survival and identity through a sequence of cruel events that include subjugation, rape, and incest. Her family's need to escape economic poverty has led to a new poverty--a moral malaise within a dissociated nuclear family. However awkward the narrative structure may appear, Emecheta is here exploring new territory. Her narrator, unlike its dispassionate Western counterpart, takes an active role by commenting on events and stating opinions--a practice evolving out of the oral tradition of the African griot that is also reminiscent of the Greek chorus in Western literary tradition. A native of Nigeria who has lived in England since 1962, Emecheta is the author of several novels, including The Rape of Shavi ( LJ 3/1/85). Her newest is a fine addition to any library.- Veronica Mitchell, New YorkCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.Product DescriptionBy the time she leaves Jamaica to join her family in London, Gwendolen feels alienated both from them and her culture, by the curses of poverty, illiteracy, and rape