Abeng (Clare Savage #1)
Michelle Cliff
Rated: 3.70 of 5 stars
3.70
· 10 ratings · 176 pages · Published: 05 Apr 1984
Ever since Abeng was first published in 1984, Michelle Cliff has steadily become a literary force. Her novels evoke both the clearly delineated hierarchies of colonial Jamaica and the subtleties of present-day island life. Nowhere is her power felt more than in Clare Savage, her Jamaican heroine, who appeared, already grown, in No Telephone to Heaven. Abeng is a kind of prequel to that highly-acclaimed novel and is a small masterpiece in its own right. Here Clare is twelve years old, the light-skinned daughter of a middle-class family, growing up among the complex contradictions of class versus color, blood versus history, harsh reality versus delusion, in a colonized country. In language that surrounds us with a richness of meaning and voices, the several strands of young Clare's heritage are explored: the Maroons, who used the conch shell—the abeng—to pass messages as they fought a guerilla struggle against their English enslavers; and the legacy of Clare's white great-great-grandfather, Judge Savage, who burned his hundred slaves on the eve of their emancipation. A lyrical, explosive coming-of-age story combined with a provocative retelling of the colonial history of Jamaica, this novel is a triumph.
Tagged as:
- historical 3
- historical fiction 3
- lgbtq+ 3
- literary fiction 3
- realistic 2
- college/university 2
- coming of age 2
- bildungsroman 2
- on the move 2
- 20th century 2
- colonization 1
- satire 1
- funny 1
- action / adventure 1
- Add topics
- format - reader age
- anthology 1
- adult fiction 1
romance tags
crime tags
literary-fiction tags
historical-fiction tags
fantasy tags
sci-fi tags
action-adventure tags
thriller tags
horror tags
Collections/Custom tags
The 'Clare Savage' series
3.70 · 10 ratings
historical · coming-of-age · feminism · colonization · realistic · satire · 20th-century · bildungsroman · travel · historical-fiction · journey · adult · literary-fiction · poc-author · female-author · university · lgbtq · fiction · humor · action-adventure
Clare Savage reading order and complete book list ❯