Bernadine Evaristo

Guest: Bernadine Evaristo, Author of three novels Lara, The Emperor's Babe and Soul Tourists, all of which fuse fiction with poetry. Blonde Roots is Bernadine's first novel written in straight prose. She was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004 and the Royal Society of Arts in 2006.

Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo

Welcome to a world turned upside down. One minute, Doris is playing hide-and-seek with her sisters in the fields behind their cottage. The next, someone puts a bag over her head and she ends up in the hold of a slave ship sailing to the New World. When she finally arrives on a strange tropical island, Doris discovers that she is, in fact, a pig-ugly savage with a brain the size of a pea, whose only purpose in life is to please her mistress. While experiencing the hardships of life in the sugarcane fields, she dreams of escape, of finding those she has loved and lost, and of returning home to her motherland, England.

Omeros by Derek walcott

"Omeros" is a 1990 poem by Derek Walcott. It is, in part, a retelling of the story of the Odyssey, set on the Caribbean island of St.Lucia.The narrative of Omeros is multilayered. Walcott focuses on no single character, unlike Homer with Achilles in the Iliad and Odysseus in the Odyssey. The story can be divided into three main threads, all of which are introduced in Book One of the poem. The first is the story of the Homerically named Achille and Hector over their love for Helen, with considerable attention paid to Philoctete, an injured fisherman based on Homer's and Sophocles' Philoctetes. The second is the interwoven story of Sergeant Major Plunkett and his Irish wife Maude, who live on the island and must reconcile themselves to the history of British colonization on St. Lucia. The final thread is that of the poet-narrator, who comments on the action of the poem and partakes in many trans-Atlantic journeys and wanderings himself.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

It contains two essays: "My Dungeon Shook - Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation", and "Down At The Cross - Letter from a Region of My Mind". The first of these is written as a letter to Baldwin's 14 year old nephew, discussing the central role of race in American history. The second deals with the relations between race and religion, focusing in particular on Baldwin's own experience with the Christian church as a youth.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

Winner of the Booker Prize in 1985, "The Bone People" is the story of Kerewin, a despairing part-Maori artist who is convinced that her solitary life is the only way to face the world. Her cocoon is rudely blown away by the sudden arrival during a rainstorm of Simon, a mute six-year-old whose past seems to hold some terrible trauma. In his wake comes his foster-father Joe, a Maori factory worker with a nasty temper. The narrative unravels to reveal the truths that lie behind these three characters, and in so doing displays itself as a huge, ambitious work that tackles the clash between Maori and European characters in beautiful prose of a heartrending poignancy.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past . . .A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House, of lost causes and lost love.

The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin

In 1812, Francisco Manoel da Silva, escaping a life of poverty in Brazil, sailed to the African kingdom of Dahomey, determined to make his fortune in the slave trade. Armed with nothing but an iron will, he became a man of substance in Ouidah and the founder of a remarkable dynasty. His one remaining ambition is to return to Brazil in triumph, but his friendship with the mad, mercurial king of Dahomey is fraught with danger and threatens his dream.

English Passengers by Matthew Neale

The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson sets out from England, in the summer of 1857, with an expedition to find the Garden of Eden, which he is convinced lies on the island of Tasmania. Unknown to him, others in the party have very different agendas, notably the surgeon, Dr Potter, who is developing a revolutionary and sinister thesis of his own on the races of man. To complicate matters further, the ship Wilson has hurriedly chartered, crewed by Captain Kewley and his secretive Manxmen, is in fact an ill-starred smuggling vessel, its hidden compartments filled with contraband brandy and tobacco. As the vessel journeys haplessly southwards, in Tasmania itself an Aboriginal named Peevay recounts his people's struggle against the invading British, who prove as lethal in their good intentions as in their cruelty. This is no Eden but a world of hunting parties and colonial ethnic cleansing. As the English passengers near Peevay's land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, it grows clear that a mighty collision is approaching.

Coming up next week- Peta Bainbridge, member of Brentwood's Reading group.