Bethany Bettany - Softcover

Fred D'Aguiar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099443570 ISBN 13: 9780099443575

Publisher: Vintage Books USA, 2004

Synopsis

A Caribbean country on the verge of collapse. A small town called Boundary. A rambling house inhabited by three generations of the Abrahams family. And a little girl who is trying to make sense of it all.Bethany Bettany is five years old when her father dies and her mother leaves her to fend for herself in the Abrahams household. The place simmers with resentment: her uncles and aunts think her mother killed her father; her grandmother refuses to leave her room. Bethany is the scapegoat for it all. In Bethany, D'Aguiar has created both a loveable character and a symbol for the search of a nation to make itself whole. If Boundary is Guyana, then Bethany Bettany - a girl torn between two names - is the spirit of its people poised for flight.

About this title

About the Author:

Fred D'Aguiar is a poet and novelist. Born in 1960, he was raised in Guyana and London. He is currently Professor of English and Gloria D. Smith Professor of Africana Studies at Virginia Tech State University. His first novel, The Longest Memory, won the 1994 Whitbread First Novel Award.

Review:

"'Immediately pleasurable... touching and suspenseful" Observer "This book is beautifully written, the characters intriguing" Scotland on Sunday "Fred D'Aguiar's powerful and original work employs all kinds of poetic rhythms and shapes to dramatise the dreams, struggles and desires of his protagonists. He has helped to create a new kind of novel... How beautifully D'Aguiar writes about eroticism and sensuality. The novel is a paean to love lost and found again" Independent "Evocative" Independent on Sunday "D'Aguiar's forte is in getting under the skin of his character... an ambitious novel" The Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0099443570
• ISBN 13: 9780099443575
• Binding: Paperback