The Intended


David Dabydeen - 2000
    With determination and self-discipline he seizes opportunities of education and upward mobility, but struggles to keep his cultural identity alive through memories of his childhood. This sophisticated postcolonial text links language and character to reveal the social divisions, educational obstacles, and self-exploration of a struggling foreigner in the mid-20th century.

HERmione


H.D. - 1981
    (1886-1961) is what can best be described as a 'find', a posthumous treasure. In writing this book, H.D. returned to a year in her life that was 'peculiarly blighted.' She was in her early twenties--'a disappointment to her father, an odd duckling to her mother, an importunate, overgrown, unincarnated entity that had no place... Waves to fight against, to fight against alone... 'I am Hermione Gart, a failure'--she cried in her dementia, 'I am Her, Her, Her.' She had failed at Bryn Mawr, she felt hemmed in by her family, she did not yet know what she was going to do with her life.

The Bridge of Beyond


Simone Schwarz-Bart - 1972
    Here long-suffering Telumee tells her life story and tells us about the proud line of Lougandor women she continues to draw strength from. Time flows unevenly during the long hot blue days as the madness of the island swirls around the villages, and Telumee, raised in the shelter of wide skirts, must learn how to navigate the adversities of a peasant community, the ecstasies of love, and domestic realities while arriving at her own precious happiness. In the words of Toussine, the wise, tender grandmother who raises her, “Behind one pain there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. But the horse mustn’t ride you, you must ride it.” A masterpiece of Caribbean literature, The Bridge of Beyond relates the triumph of a generous and hopeful spirit, while offering a gorgeously lush, imaginative depiction of the flora, landscape, and customs of Gua­deloupe. Simone Schwarz-Bart’s incantatory prose, interwoven with Creole proverbs and lore, appears here in a remarkable translation by Barbara Bray.

Typical American


Gish Jen - 1991
     Gish Jen reinvents the American immigrant story through the Chang family, who first come to the United States with no intention of staying. When the Communists assume control of China in 1949, though, Ralph Chang, his sister Theresa, and his wife Helen, find themselves in a crisis. At first, they cling to their old-world ideas of themselves.  But as they begin to dream the American dream of self-invention, they move poignantly and ironically from people who disparage all that is “typical American” to people who might be seen as typically American themselves. With droll humor and a deep empathy for her characters, Gish Jen creates here a superbly engrossing story that resonates with wit and wisdom even as it challenges the reader to reconsider what a typical American might be today.

New Islands: And Other Stories


María Luisa Bombal - 1939
    that we greet the publication of New Islands, a slim book of evocative, haunting stories by Maria Luisa Bombal, a Chilean writer whose creative period was basically confined to the 1930's and 40's and whose work, although small in volume, was rich in its effects, anticipating the magic realism found in so much of today's Latin American fiction. - The New York Times

After Henry


Joan Didion - 1992
    At each stop she uncovers the mythic narratives that elude other observers: Didion tells us about the fantasies the media construct around crime victims and presidential candidates; she gives us new interpretations of the stories of Nancy Reagan and Patty Hearst; she charts America's rollercoaster ride through evanescent booms and hard times that won't go away. A bracing amalgam of skepticism and sympathy, After Henry is further proof of Joan Didion's infallible radar for the true spirit of our age.

A World of Poetry for CXC


Mark McWatt - 1994
    This edition meets the requirements of the latest CSEC syllabuses A and B in English. It includes all the prescribed poems to help students prepare effectively for the CSEC examination. - Stimulate an interest in and enjoyment of Poetry with a selection of poems across a wide range of themes and subjects, a balance of well-known poems from the past as well as more recent works, and a selection from the Caribbean and the rest of the world - Provoke discussion and help student's analysis with notes on each poem, questions and a useful checklist - Includes practical guidance for students on how to tackle examination questions, with examples of model answers for reference.

Swamp Angel


Ethel Wilson - 1954
    But the serenity of Maggie’s new surroundings is soon disturbed by the irrational jealousy of the lodge-keeper’s wife. Restoring her own broken spirit, Maggie must also become a healer to others. In this, she is supported by her eccentric friend, Nell Severance, whose pearl-handled revolver – the Swamp Angel – becomes Maggie’s ambiguous talisman and the novel’s symbolic core.Ethel Wilson’s best-loved novel, Swamp Angel first appeared in 1954. It remains an astute and powerful study of one woman’s integrity and of the redemptive power of compassion.

Ciudad Real (City of Kings)


Rosario Castellanos - 1960
    Ciudad Real earned the author the Premio Xavier Villaurrutia in 1961. ''A subtle paradox inhabits these unrelenting stories???She manages her exposure of the racist underpinnings of society brilliantly; more than 30 years after these stories were written, the inhumanity they portray continues to chill the soul.'' ???Publishers Weekly

The Magnificent Spinster


May Sarton - 1985
    After Jane’s death, the accidental discovery of poems written by Cam in her youth to Jane prompts a flood of recollections—and frees Cam to imagine in fiction Jane’s passionately vibrant life.

If Morning Ever Comes


Anne Tyler - 1964
    Raised by his mother, grandmother, and a flock of busy sisters, he's always felt the outsider. When he learns that one of his sisters has left her husband, he heads for home and back into the confusion of childhood memories and unforseen love....

How to Make an American Quilt


Whitney Otto - 1991
    As they gather year after year, their stories, their wisdom, their lives, form the pattern from which all of us draw warmth and comfort for ourselves.A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE COMING OUT FALL 1995-- with Maya Angelou, Winona Ryder, and Rip Torn

The Balkan Trilogy


Olivia Manning - 1960
    This classic work of post-war fiction was made into a magnificent BBC television series starring Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh.

Tender Buttons


Gertrude Stein - 1914
    Stein's strong influence on 20th-century literature is evident in this 1915 work of highly original prose rendered in thought-provoking experimental techniques.

Arcadia


Tom Stoppard - 1993
    Focusing on the mysteries--romantic, scientific, literary--that engage the minds and hearts of characters whose passions and lives intersect across scientific planes and centuries, it is "Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and... emotion. It's like a dream of levitation: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop-the-loops and then, when you think you're about to plummet to earth, swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow... Exhilarating" (Vincent Canby, The New York Times).