by Fred D ' Aguiar (Author)
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 has not left her room since her grandfather disappeared. Bethany is the scapegoat for it all. Taunted, beaten, despised, she retreats into silence and learns to make herself invisible. As she quietly nurses her wounds, she eavesdrops on the conversation of the adults around her. Soon she is piecing together answers to the questions that haunt her. How did her father die? Why doesn't her mother answer her letters? And who is she? Fred D'Aguiar's wonderfully rich, evocative fourth novel is a book about borders - between people and between nations. In Bethany, he 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.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 23 Jan 2003
ISBN 10: 0701173823
ISBN 13: 9780701173821
Book Overview: A startling new novel from one of our most acclaimed black writers. Fred D'Aguiar is one of the most powered, vital and innovative writers we have. He finds voice where voice is lost or unheard and poetry where none is expected, and every one of his novels renews the potency and form of fiction. ALI SMITH