Library


Caryl Phillips
1958 -


The Final Passage
This is the story of the Windrush generation as Caribbean Islanders head to Britain to participate in the 1950s opportunities there. This story follows a couple having to come to terms with a new post-colonial reality in a foreign land. It offers a bleak portrayal of the difficulties for those hoping that the journey would improve their lives and opportunities.

Amazon

A State of Independence
This is the story of a man returning to his West Indian home on the eve of independence from British rule only to find that he has become a foreigner from the land of his birth.

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Higher Ground
This is a book which crosses generations to follow the stories of peoples in plight. The first tale tells the story of an African working with slavers to help round up slaves for transportation to the New World only to become hated by blacks and whites alike. The second tale is about a black American being arrested and abused during the civil rights era. The third tale gives an account of a holocaust survivor and her difficulties in reintegrating and being accepted back into society in the aftermath of the horrors of the concentration camp. The book attempts to address issues of racism across the ages and through different racial groups.

Amazon

Cambridge
This book seeks to analyse the issue of slavery from multiple angles and viewpoints as the life of a devoutly christian slave (Cambridge) collides with the daughter of an absentee landlord who arrives on the Caribbean Island in the dying days of the institution of slavery.

Amazon

Crossing the River
This tells the stories of two descendents of slavery. One is set in the 1830s and features an Christian missionary travelling to Liberia as the ripples of empire saw this descendent of a slave return to Africa as the proponent of a European view of Christianity. The second story sees an African American G.I. arrive in Britain to discover a very different appreciation of his skin colour than what he is used to back in a segregrated America.

Amazon

The Atlantic Sound
The author writes a travellogue visiting three key parts of the infamous triangular trade as he seeks to follow the footsteps and consequences of the slave trade. He visits Liverpool in Britain, Charleston in the USA and Elmina in Ghana as he attempts to come to terms with the processes and motivations for slavery and examines it cultural impact and consequences.

Amazon

A New World Order
This is a series of stories which examines the concept of a "new world order" of cultural plurality as people are forced to come to terms with complex and complicated historical legacies and interactions. He deals with issues of post-colonial identity and the impact of independence and migration on peoples understanding of their place in the world.

Amazon


Review of Caryl Phillips' Books


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by Stephen Luscombe