The Atlantic Sound - Hardcover

Phillips, Caryl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375401105 ISBN 13: 9780375401107

Verlag: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

A thoughtful analysis of the lasting legacy of slavery journeys from Liverpool, England, to Accra, Ghana, and Charleston, South Carolina, to explore the major route of the trans-Atlantic slave trade from the perspective of both historical figures and the author's own personal observations. 20,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies; his family emigrated to England that same year, and he was brought up in Leeds and educated at Oxford. Phillips has written numerous scripts for film, theater, radio and television. He is the author of one previous book of nonfiction, <i>The European Tribe</i>, and six novels, including <i>Cambridge, Crossing the River and The Nature of Blood</i>. He has received numerous awards--the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize among them. He lives in New York City.<br><br>Caryl Phillips's <b>The Final Passage, A State of Independence, The European Tribe, Higher Ground, Cambridge, Crossing the River</b> and <b>The Nature of Blood</b> are available in Vintage paperback.

Aus dem Klappentext

ngland; Accra, Ghana; Charleston, South Carolina. These were the points of the triangle forming the major route of the transatlantic slave trade. And these are the cities that acclaimed author Caryl Phillips explores--physically, historically, psychologically--in this wide-ranging meditation on the legacy of slavery and the impact of the African diaspora on the life of a place and its people.<br><br>In a brilliantly layered narrative, Phillips combines his own observations with the stories of figures from the past. The experiences of an African trader in nineteenth-century Liverpool are contrasted with Phillips's experience of the city, where, as a Carib-bean black, he is scorned by the city's "native" blacks. His interactions with American Pan-Africanists coming "home" to Ghana (and with those Ghanaians for whom leaving seems the best hope) are paired with the account of a British-trained African minister in eighteenth-century Accra who turned a blind eye to the slave trade

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Homeward Bound

A friend told me a story about a Ghanaian man he knew who, apparently through 'no fault of his own', had ended up in a British prison. He paused. I waited. He had just returned from visiting his friend in prison and the accumulated fatigue from the journey, plus the disturbing experience of seeing the man in confinement, was beginning to tell on him. He sat down. He began to tell the story again, this time more wistfully. OK, so perhaps his friend was culpable to some degree. He was a young Ghanaian man who had ostensibly come to England to study but he had managed to overstay his visa. He had also managed not to study--or rather, he had 'studied' but earned neither a diploma nor a degree. In all likelihood he would be deported back to Ghana with a stamp in his passport that would effectively make it impossible for him to return to Britain. I listened to my friend's new version of the story, which was identical to the first version except this time I learned the man's name. Mohammed Mansour Nassirudeen, prisoner number HA1000, would soon be returning to Ghana without his formal education, and with a mark of shame. He would be a convicted criminal.

        'You know, he wants to be a writer.' I looked across at my friend. 'He's been writing, and he's just got a prize for an essay.' My friend reached down into his smart new briefcase and retrieved a file of papers. He flicked through them and then handed me a five-page essay entitled 'A Day in My Life as a Detainee'. I looked at the creased, dog-eared pieces of paper, then put them to one side, I would read them later. I asked, 'Is he likely to get any kind of last-minute reprieve and be allowed to stay?' My friend rubbed the back of his hand into a tired and lined face. 'No chance', he said. 'He'll be going back to Ghana on a one-way ticket. After all his effort to get here, after everything that he's been through in Britain, they'll just put him on a plane to Ghana and kick him out. As simple as that.'

        In the evening, after my friend had left, I picked up the crumpled essay and began to read. The structure was conventional enough. It simply traced the contours of Mohammed Mansour Nassirudeen's 'prison day', which began at 4.30 a.m. with Muslim prayers, and ended at 9 p.m. with more prayers. The 'day' that sprawled from pre-dawn to post-dusk was characterized by Mansour's apparently insatiable hunger to attend educational classes in order that he might improve himself, and his dedication to prayer. Mansour's narrative successfully resisted the impulse to explain just why he was serving time in Haslar Detention Centre but, this glaring omission aside, there was an admirably stoic determination to his tale--as told by himself--which was betrayed by only one piece of special pleading.

The morning session of education ceases at 11.30. During the interval I keep myself mentally active as much as possible. My mind is constantly occupied with new ideas which I have organized in my Database. That leaves me little room to think about my problems of being locked up in detention when I have committed no crime during the eight years that I have lived in Great Britain and paid my taxes. Nevertheless, I see my situation not as a problem but as an 'opportunity'. I certainly don't know why I am here. But it has to be for a reason which only God knows. Even prophets like Joseph, Ysusf, have been in jail, and other dignified people like Nelson Mandela. Life is full of paradoxes, I feel physically that I am in detention, though spiritually I am not.

        Six weeks later Mohammed Mansour Nassirudeen was escorted on to a British Airways flight to Accra, Ghana, his passport having been suitably stamped so that it would be clear to any immigration officer at any immigration point in the world that this man had been deported from Britain for being an illegal immigrant,


Through the open window of the car the warm night wind strokes my face. We are racing further into the heart of a city. As we do so, the houses begin to multiply on either side of the road, thickening into neighbourhoods that reach back to the low-lying hills. A forest of flickering lights suggests the density and extent of the hidden population. Despite the late hour, traffic streams relentlessly, and noisily, along the black ribbon of the highway. Through the cracked and spidered windshield, I can see that we are following a large truck whose red tail-lights blink with ominous unpredictability. As the truck brakes, we too brake, often with a sudden violence which throws me forward so that my outstretched arm is all that prevents me from careening into the back of the driver's seat. African driving. First, a somnambulant dog and then a disorientated cow wander aimlessly across this main road. They provide us with further obstacles to be screeched around. Mercifully, the driver slows down as we enter the heart of Accra. As we do so, the streets broaden with a majestic moonlit flourish and announce themselves as the streets of a capital city. At all the major intersections there are clusters of vigilant, gun-toting policemen. Young policemen. Boys really. Mansour twists around in the driver's seat. 'Nearly there,' he says with a broad smile. 'You will soon be at your hotel.' He is proud of his country, and he is clearly enjoying the role of trusted driver. I settle back in my seat and let the warm night wind continue to stroke my face.

I am sitting at a filthy plastic-topped table that is littered with abandoned packets of white and brown sugar, discarded plastic stirrers, a shallow puddle of coffee, and the sticky remains of some sweet orange drink. The plane is delayed and I have suddenly been presented with an extra six hours in Gatwick Airport. They say travel broadens the mind. I had asked the airline's representative a polite question. She looked disdainfully at me. 'Mechanical problems, love.' I was hoping for something a little more specific than this. No, I cannot have my luggage back and take a flight on the following day. Apparently my checked bag has already been 'processed' and is lurking somewhere in the inner bowels of the airport. Like the other one hundred and fifty abandoned souls, I have been presented with a ú15 voucher, haven't I? There are, she tells me, a whole network of shops and restaurants in the terminal 'which rival any inner-city High Street'. So what is my problem? Shamefaced, I hurry away and sit at the filthy plastic-topped table.

        'United revel in goal spree.' I am reading the story for a second time when I am interrupted by a tall, slightly stooped man who, on the evidence of his heavy tray, has clearly spent his ú15 with enthusiasm. 'Do you mind if I join you?' Of course not, I say, both signalling him to please take a seat and gesturing helplessly towards the table top. 'I am used to Heathrow,' he says. He takes a bite out of his egg and cress sandwich. I know what he means. I too am used to Heathrow. Suddenly choice opens up for me. I can go and spend my ú15, I can have a conversation, or I can return to my newspaper. I choose the latter. 'United revel in goal spree.'

        I had awoken at dawn to the unusual sound of birds singing. In my London neighbourhood the sound of an articulated lorry rumbling by is the usual signal that the day is breaking. The alarm rang out, but having turned it off I lay in bed for ten minutes watching the light creep around the corner of the curtains. Eventually I went downstairs, made a cup of black coffee, and stared intently at a cat who was sitting on top of a wall staring intently back at me. As usual, I would lose this face-off. My bags were packed. I was leaving...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Alfred A. Knopf
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2000
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0375401105
• ISBN 13: 9780375401107
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 275
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar