Vintage International
15 total works
Francis Barber, 'given' to the great eighteenth-century writer Samuel Johnson, afforded an unusual depth of freedom, which, after Johnson's death, would help hasten his wretched demise...Randolph Turpin, Britain's first black world champion boxer, who made history in 1951 by defeating Sugar Ray Robinson, and who ended his life in debt and despair...David Oluwale, a Nigerian stowaway who arrived in Leeds in 1949, the events of whose life called into question the reality of English justice, and whose death at the hands of police in 1969 served as a wake-up call for the entire nation.Each of these men's stories is told in a different, perfectly realized voice. Each illuminates the complexity and drama that lie behind the simple notions of haplessness that have been used to explain the tragedy of their lives. And each explores, in entirely new ways, the themes - at once timeless and urgent - that have been at the heart of all of Caryl Phillips' work: belonging, identity, and race. "Foreigners" is among his most powerful, empathic, and profoundly affecting books.
In his most ambitious novel to date, Phillips creates a dazzling kaleidoscope of historical fiction, one that illuminates the dark legacy of Europe's obsession with race and blood. At the center of The Nature of Blood is a young woman, a Nazi death camp survivor, devastated by the loss of everyone she loves. Her story is interwoven with a cast of characters from both the present and past: her uncle Stephan, Othello the Moorish general, three Jews in 15th century Venice, and an Ethiopian Jew struggling for acceptance in contemporary Israel. Tracing these characters through disparate lands and centuries, Phillips creates an unforgettable group portrait of individuals overwhelmed by the force of European tribalism.
"An extraordinarily perceptive and intelligent novel, and a haunting one."--New York Times
"An extraordinarily perceptive and intelligent novel, and a haunting one."--New York Times
Phillips examines the transitions of a Caribbean nation from colonialism to a dubious state of independence through the experiences of Bertram Francis, a young man who leaves St. Kitts at the age of thirteen to study law on a coveted scholarship in England. Twenty years later he returns, chastened by failure, hoping to succeed at “something that doesn't make me dependent upon the white man.” The rejections Francis faced in England are nothing to those that greet him in his homeland, where the resentments of the people he abandoned are exceeded only by the cynicism of the old friends who have prospered under the new regime.
The streets of modern-day London are hectic, multicultural, and difficult to read if you are a white-collar, middle-aged man. Keith is a social worker who, following a brief affair with a colleague, finds himself living alone in a flat a few streets away from his wife, Annabelle, and his teenage son. His domestic problems, allied with growing tensions at work, profoundly undermine his peace of mind. Keith attempts to take refuge in a long-cherished writing project and turns his attention to the plight of his aging father, but for the first time in his life he feels extremely vulnerable as a black man in English society. Annabelle met Keith twenty-five years ago at university, and she watches the man she married - against the wishes of her English parents - as he appears to be losing his grip on his life. However, after three years of estrangement, she realizes that despite her disappointment with her former husband, the pair of them have no choice but to close ranks and protect their son, who seems to have become increasingly involved with street gangs and a world that is entirely alien to them.
A brilliant and penetrating story of contemporary Britain, "In the Falling Snow" is Caryl Phillips' finest novel yet.
A brilliant and penetrating story of contemporary Britain, "In the Falling Snow" is Caryl Phillips' finest novel yet.
One of England's most widely acclaimed young novelists adopts two eerily convincing narrative voices and juxtaposes their stories to devastating effect in this mesmerizing portrait of slavery. Cambridge is a devoutly Christian slave in the West Indies whose sense of justice is both profound and self-destructive, while Emily is a morally-blind, genteel Englishwoman.
Aiming to show that the "mongrelization" of Britain and British literature began well before the second half of the 20th century, this selection incorporates 18th-century black writers with direct experience of the slave trade, such as Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano. It also looks at white writers whose accident of birth took place in a British colony, resulting in a similar sense of ambivalence, whether in the jingoism of a Rudyard Kipling or the social commitment of a George Orwell. And it reflects the emergence of a group of writers who demonstrate the same mixture of attachment and detachment which marks them as products of the British Empire, including V.S. Naipaul and Linton Kwesi Johnson.
This searing novel about slavery and its legacy brings the same stylistic virtuosity and tightly focused intelligence of Phillips's other novels. Higher Ground tells multiple stories, set generations and continents apart but unified by their ambitious exploration of themes of race, power, captivity, and abuse.
In a slave garrison in Africa, a native collaborator betrays his people and humiliates himself in order to win the favor of white men. From an American prison cell in the 1960s, a black convict tries to impart his vision of race and justice to his indifferent family. And in a dreary city in postwar England, a displaced Jewish refugee watches her youth and sanity slip down the drain of history.
Combined and in the skilled hands of Phillips, these narratives take on a devastating power.
In a slave garrison in Africa, a native collaborator betrays his people and humiliates himself in order to win the favor of white men. From an American prison cell in the 1960s, a black convict tries to impart his vision of race and justice to his indifferent family. And in a dreary city in postwar England, a displaced Jewish refugee watches her youth and sanity slip down the drain of history.
Combined and in the skilled hands of Phillips, these narratives take on a devastating power.
In 1984 the novelist Caryl Phillips set off on a journey across Europe in an attempt to clarify the fundamental question of his identity - as he put it "to come to terms with what it is like to feel both of, and not of, Europe". In a series of snapshots - part travelogue, part autobiography, part polemic - the author gives an account of a journey of the heart and mind as well as of Europe today. This new edition includes an account of the radical and profound changes which have taken place in Europe over the last eight years.
The story of three different members of the same African American family, one a missionary to Liberia in the 1830s, one a freed slave settling in the "wild West", and one an American GI stationed in England during WWII.
This text ranges widely across the Atlantic World that Caryl Phillips has charted in his novels and non-fiction books since 1980. Phillips begins by introducing the reader to books by such authors as James Baldwin, Joseph Conrad and Richard Wright. He then goes on to reflect on the work of such seminal figures as Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul and Nadime Gordimer. This collection of essays is not, however, limited to the literary. The author goes in search of Steven Spielberg, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Marvin Gaye. He writes about the moment when St Kitts, the small island of his birth, became independent and talks about the role and responsibility of being a writer born into a post-colonial world who lives on both sides of the Atlantic. In the final section of the book, the author turns the spotlight on Britain and examines the country that formed and educated him, speculating about his parents migration to Britain in the late 1950s, the continued legacy of racism, his own helpless loyalty to Leeds United, and his anxieties at feeling as though he is both of, and not of, Britain.
The Atlantic Sound is a travel book that is also a passionate argument with history: a personal quest to explore and fully understand the painful, ongoing legacy of the Atlantic slave trade. Phillips cruises through the Caribbean, observing everywhere the patronage of the United States. He explores Liverpool, constructed on the slave trade, now denying that history; Elmina in Ghana, site of a slave fort, now a tourist spot for black Americans; and Charleston in the American South, where one-third of black Americans were bought and sold. And Phillips retraces the journey he made to England from the Caribbean, as a child in 1958.
'Bert Williams is the funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew.' W. C. Fields Born in the Bahamas in 1874 and brought up there and in Los Angeles Bert Williams was disappointed early in life when his attempt to enter Stanford University was thwarted by his family's poverty. His early forays into the West Coast entertainment business saw him fare no better. After a time playing African 'savages' in white companies with his friend and theatrical partner-to-be George Walker, they made the agonising decision to 'play the coon'. Off-stage, Williams was a tall, light-skinned man with marked poise and dignity but on-stage he now became a shuffling, inept 'nigger' who pulled a wig of kinky hair over his head, wore blackface make-up, and concealed his hands in gloves. They were an immediate hit with Walker playing the dapper, straight man, and Williams the bumbling fool. As the new century dawned they were headlining on Broadway and amongst the highest-paid entertainers in the country. But the mask was beginning to overwhelm Williams who felt increasingly degraded by his situation and began to sink into bouts of melancholia and heavy drinking.
After his more flamboyant partner died in 1911 the continued personal humiliations that accompanied his professional success became difficult to bear. In 1921, after a lifetime of being denied top-billing because of his colour, his name was in lights as he headlined in the musical comedy 'Under The Bamboo Tree'. He was leading an entirely white company but he was still trapped in blackface. Dancing in the Dark is an outstanding novel as much about the tragedy of race and identity, and the perils of reinvention, as it is about the life of one remarkable man.
After his more flamboyant partner died in 1911 the continued personal humiliations that accompanied his professional success became difficult to bear. In 1921, after a lifetime of being denied top-billing because of his colour, his name was in lights as he headlined in the musical comedy 'Under The Bamboo Tree'. He was leading an entirely white company but he was still trapped in blackface. Dancing in the Dark is an outstanding novel as much about the tragedy of race and identity, and the perils of reinvention, as it is about the life of one remarkable man.
Dorothy is a retired schoolteacher who has recently moved to a housing estate in a small village. Solomon is a night-watchman, an immigrant from an unnamed country in Africa. Each is desperate for love. And yet each harbors secrets that may make attaining it impossible.
With breathtaking assurance and compassion, Caryl Phillips retraces the paths that lead Dorothy and Solomon to their meeting point: her failed marriage and ruinous obsession with a younger man, the horrors he witnessed as a soldier in his disintegrating native land, and the cruelty he encounters as a stranger in his new one. Intimate and panoramic, measured and shattering, A Distant Shore charts the oceanic expanses that separate people from their homes, their hearts, and their selves.
With breathtaking assurance and compassion, Caryl Phillips retraces the paths that lead Dorothy and Solomon to their meeting point: her failed marriage and ruinous obsession with a younger man, the horrors he witnessed as a soldier in his disintegrating native land, and the cruelty he encounters as a stranger in his new one. Intimate and panoramic, measured and shattering, A Distant Shore charts the oceanic expanses that separate people from their homes, their hearts, and their selves.
Tells the story of Leila, a nineteen year old woman living on a small Caribbean island in the 1950s. Her subsequent passage to England brings her face to face with the consequences of the decisions she has made to determine her life on her own terms.
From stately lawns and gentlemen players to Andre Agassi and Venus Williams: 65 great writings on tennis that chronicle the transformation of the sport.
Since its inception, tennis has embraced traditions more patrician than plebeian. But times--and tennis--have changed. The game once reserved for royalty has moved from estate lawns to the concrete courts of the city. Old guard amateurs have given way to prodigies plastered with corporate logos. And while barriers of gender, race, and class have been shattered, the modern plagues of self-promotion, the paparazzi, and challengers of ever-escalating talent loom large.
In The Right Set, award-winning novelist and editor Caryl Phillips presents a collection of writings on the remarkable evolution of a gentleman's pastime into a sport of jet-set players of athletic and psychological genius. Here are the stories of champions, from the Renshaw twins to "ghetto Cinderella" Venus Williams. Here, too, are volleys between tradition and innovation--debates on everything from etiquette and earnings to André Agassi's rejection of the customary tennis whites. Insightful, informative, wonderfully entertaining, The Right Set is as colorful and surprising as the game itself.
John McPhee on Ashe vs. Graebner
David Higdon on Venus Williams
James Thurber on Helen Wills
Martina Navratilova on Bad Losers
Martin Amis on Smashing the Rackets
and more
Since its inception, tennis has embraced traditions more patrician than plebeian. But times--and tennis--have changed. The game once reserved for royalty has moved from estate lawns to the concrete courts of the city. Old guard amateurs have given way to prodigies plastered with corporate logos. And while barriers of gender, race, and class have been shattered, the modern plagues of self-promotion, the paparazzi, and challengers of ever-escalating talent loom large.
In The Right Set, award-winning novelist and editor Caryl Phillips presents a collection of writings on the remarkable evolution of a gentleman's pastime into a sport of jet-set players of athletic and psychological genius. Here are the stories of champions, from the Renshaw twins to "ghetto Cinderella" Venus Williams. Here, too, are volleys between tradition and innovation--debates on everything from etiquette and earnings to André Agassi's rejection of the customary tennis whites. Insightful, informative, wonderfully entertaining, The Right Set is as colorful and surprising as the game itself.
John McPhee on Ashe vs. Graebner
David Higdon on Venus Williams
James Thurber on Helen Wills
Martina Navratilova on Bad Losers
Martin Amis on Smashing the Rackets
and more