Myal

Myal

Jamaican-born novelist and sociologist Erna Brodber describes Myal as â€œan exploration of the links between the way of life forged by the people of two points of the black diasporaâ€”the Afro-Americans and the Afro-Jamaicans.â€ Operating on many literary levelsâ€”thematically, linguistically, stylisticallyâ€”it is the story of womenâ€™s cultural and spiritual struggle in colonial Jamaica. The novel opens at the beginning of the 20th century with a community gathering to heal the mysterious illness of a young woman, Ella, who has returned to Jamaica after an unsuccessful marriage abroad. The Afro-Jamaican religion myal, which asserts that good has the power to conquer all, is invoked to heal Ella, who has been left â€œzombifiedâ€ and devoid of any black soul. Ella, who is light skinned enough to pass for white, has suffered a breakdown after her white American husband produced a black-face minstrel show based on the stories of her village and childhood. This cultural appropriation is one of a series Ella encountered in her life, and parallels the ongoing theft of the labor and culture of colonized peoples for imperial gain and pleasure. The novelâ€™s rich, vivid language and vital characters earned it the Commonwealth Writersâ€™ Prize for Canada and the Caribbean.
Country USA
Manufacturer Waveland Press, Inc.
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2014-08-11
Format Kindle eBook

You might also like...