Small Island by bestselling author Andrea Levy won the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Orange Prize 'Best of the Best' as well as the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Whitbread. Possibly the definitive fictional account of the experiences of the Empire Windrush generation, it was recently selected by the BBC as one of its '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'.
It is 1948, and England is
recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has
only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she
agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her
husband will return, or if he will come back at all.
What else
can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men
who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a
civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation
that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at
her door.
Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave
Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she
is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city
of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was...
Small Island - Andrea Levy
- Product Code:New
- Availability:In Stock
-
£8.99