Gloria
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
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'Kerry Young is a standalone talent in the new emerging generation of writers from the Caribbean region. Read her if you want to know about the Caribbean' - Monique Roffey, winner of the OCM BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature
'A vivid portrayal ... Kerry Young's heartfelt, sparky and affecting debut novel is a chronicle of multicultural Jamaica, both in its cultural richness and in its strife and tensions' - Guardian
'A pacy but absorbing saga of domestic struggle and gangland manoeuvring set against the violent backdrop of postwar Jamaican politics' - Independent on Sunday
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From the author of the Costa and Commonwealth Prize-shortlisted Pao
Jamaica, 1938. Gloria Campbell is sixteen years old when a single violent act changes her life forever. She and her younger sister flee their hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. As all around them the city convulses with political change, Gloria's desperation and striking beauty lead her to Sybil and Beryl, and a house of ill-repute where she meets Yang Pao, a Kingston racketeer whose destiny becomes irresistibly bound with her own.
Sybil kindles in Gloria a fire of social justice which will propel her to Cuba and a personal and political awakening that she must reconcile with the realities of her life, her love of Jamaica and a past that is never far behind her.
Set against the turbulent backdrop of a country on the cusp of a new era, Gloria is an enthralling and illuminating story of love and redemption.
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'Gloria is a brilliant, observant, sometimes complex read, but with clear and simple messages, it speaks to the feminist and equal rights campaigner in all of us *****' - Western Mail
'A very authentic portrayal of a woman's lot in 1950s, 1960s Jamaica. I fell in love with Gloria and was turning over the pages rapidly, willing her to conquer her situation. A triumph' - Alex Wheatle, author of Brenton Brown
'A highly evocative portrait of a country in transition, and of one woman's search for self-awareness and self-respect' - Mail on Sunday
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The sophomore novel from Young (Pao) is the story of one Jamaican woman's search for love and self-respect. Sixteen-year-old Gloria, while rescuing her younger sister, Marcia, from rape, kills the would-be attacker. Soon after, she leaves her small town, taking Marcia with her to Kingston. It is 1938, and all over the city, workers are striking and shutting down businesses, but Gloria manages to find work for herself and her sister. However, it quickly becomes apparent that as a poor dark-skinned woman, her life is still controlled by others, particularly predatory men. Yearning for independence, she befriends local prostitutes Sybil and Beryl, and, after losing her job as a shop clerk, decides to accept Sybil's promise of a life where "yu not beholden to no man for the roof over yu head or have to be grateful to him for putting a ring pon yu finger." In the brothel, Gloria meets and unexpectedly falls for Pao, the unofficial Chinatown enforcer and protagonist of Young's previous novel. Set against the political turbulence of a country struggling toward independence, the novel's treatment of autonomy and self-reliance is admirable yet stale and heavy-handed. Though written in phonetic Jamaican Patois, the prose lacks the vivacity to bring the characters or Jamaica itself to life.
