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Product Description
Product Description
Written in taut, poetic language, THE LONGEST MEMORY is set on a Virginian plantation in the 19th century, and tells the tragic story of a rebellious, fiercely intelligent young slave who breaks all the rules: in learning to read and write, in falling in love with a white girl, the daughter of his owner, and, finally, in trying to escape and join her in the free North. For his attempt to flee, he is whipped to death in front of his family, and this brutal event is the pivot around which the story evolves.
About the Author
Fred D'Aguiar was born in London in 1960 and raised in Guyana and south-east London. He now lives in Florida, where he teaches English at the University of Miami. Author of four novels and four books of poetry, he has been awarded the University of Kent's T.S. Eliot prize for poetry, the Guyanese National Poetry Award and the Malcolm X prize for poetry. He also won the 1994 Whitbread First Novel Award and the David Higham Award for The Longest Memory.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
One man's tragedy - and the punishment of his continual rememberance of it - serves to illustrate the appalling injustice that built America, and gave rise to English cities such as Liverpool (where I write from). I mean slavery. We all know that slavery is wrong, and desperately so. But being convicted of it in your own heart is something quite different from a cerebral knowledge of that truth. Just as 'Schindler's List' shocked us into despising Nazism, 'The Longest Memory' should shock us into despising slavery. D'Aguiar energetically narrates this tragedy which reminds us of the humanity in us all - regardless of our status - and the immorality of negating the dignity that humanity bestows on us.
Format:Paperback
The Longest Memory is one of my most favourite recent finds! I wasn't expecting very much from such a short book which i'd never heard of but i was blown away by the emotions it evoked. The story revolves around a single, controversial event that takes place on a Slave Plantation in the late 18th Century. Various different narrators all add their own personal perspectives and insight into the build up and after shock of the event through all manners of forms inculding poetry, prose, newspaper articles and diary entries. The silences, inevitabilities and terrible sadness ache throughout this short work of literary gold.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
D'Aguiar explores the errors of humanity in his first text, "The Longest Memory" in a simple context using complex ideas. It discusses the impact slarvey has on human values and the impact this system has on a young slave. It looks at the events surrounding this slave, Chapel, the way he was miss conceived as a black slave with a white father. Yet, Chapel remained a slave till his death, but not without struggle. It is also this struggle to outrun the slavery system that bring Chapel to a tragic end, despite all the warning from his foster father, Whitechapel. This stroy begins with a detail account from Whitechapel of his involvement in the death of his son. He shows empathy for his son's complicated situation; for his son, a mere slave, was in a star-crossed love with the daughter of the plantation's masters. Whitechapel, having been a honest and model slave for all the years of his service, give all his knowledge to enlighten Chapel on his class and the way he shouuld behave. The setting of the novel is in a early 19th century Virigian plantation, where the practice of slavery existed and continued to thrive. It was on this plantation that a story would be told; the story of Chapel, born a slave with half the blood of a White Overseer. Chapel born as a intelligent slave, learning to be literate with Lydia, the factor that caused his runaway and death. Being told about the boundary slavery has created, Chapel gave up on his family to run away and met up with his love, Lydia. Despite this fairy tale situation, the outcome is ugly. It demonstrates the impact slavery has brought to humanity where Chapel was beaten to death by his own half brother, the new overseer. The memory of Whitechapel further explains the complication of this era and the unexpected results are proves of his ideas. These long memories should better be forgotten, yet its hard to forget.
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