Livres - Bibliographie

The English village is a place where people come to lick their wounds. Dorothy has walked away from a bad thirty-year marriage, an affair gone sour and a dangerous obsession. Between her visits to the doctor and the music lessons she gives to bored teenagers, she is trying to rebuild a life.

It's not immediately clear why her neighbour, Solomon, is living in the village, but his African origin suggests a complex history that is at odds with his dull routine of washing the car and making short trips to the supermarket. Though all he has in common with the English is a shared language, it soon becomes clear that Solomon hopes that his new country will provide him with a safe haven. Gradually they establish a form of comfort in each other's presence that alleviates the isolation they both feel.

Trois enfants sont vendus à un négrier. On retrouvera l'un au Libéria au début du XIXe siècle ; l'autre en G.I., dans un village du Yorkshire, pendant la seconde guerre mondiale ; la troisième, elle, est partie vivre sa vie au Far-West.

Perdus dans le temps et dans l'espace, tels des âmes errantes, leur parole est recueillie par celui qui les a vendus, et qui n'est autre que leur père. Depuis deux cents ans, il attend leur retour, tressant cette histoire avec les brins de leurs destins brisés. Sa voix les accompagne, charriant la souffrance, l'humiliation mais aussi l'espoir.

Avec ce livre magique, Caryl Phillips a écrit le roman du peuple afro-américain. Un peuple exilé de sa propre histoire, et qui s'efforce, à travers les mots, d'en retrouver le fil. Qu'y a-t-il là-bas, « de l'autre côté du fleuve », sinon la Terre Promise ?

Qu'il s'agisse de traverser une frontière, une rivière ou un océan, c'est toujours d'une libération dont il est question.

'The funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew.' This is how W.C. Fields described Bert Williams, the highest-paid entertainer in America in his heyday and someone who counted the King of England and Buster Keaton among his fans.

Born in the Bahamas, he moved to California with his family. Too poor to attend Stanford University, he took to life on the stage with his friend George Walker. Together they played lumber camps and mining towns until they eventually made the agonising decision to 'play the coon'. Off-stage, Williams was a tall, light-skinned man with marked poise and dignity; on-stage he now became a shuffling, inept 'nigger' who wore blackface make-up. As the new century dawned they were headlining on Broadway. But the mask was beginning to overwhelm Williams and he sank into bouts of melancholia and heavy drinking, unable to escape the blackface his public demanded.