In the 1950s seaside town of Merham, everyone knows their place. Lottie Swift, an evacuee living with the respectable Holden
...
Francis Barber, 'given' to the great eighteenth-century writer Samuel Johnson, afforded an unusual depth of freedom, which, after Johnson's death, would help hasten his wretched demise... Randolph Turpin, Britain's first black world champion boxer, who made history in 1951 by defeating Sugar Ray Robinson, & who ended his life in debt & despair... David Oluwale, a Nigerian stowaway who arrived in Leeds in 1949, the events of whose life called into question the reality of English justice, & whose death at the hands of police in 1969 served as a wake-up call for the entire nation. Each of these men's stories is told in a different, perfectly realized voice. Each illuminates the complexity & drama that lie behind the simple notions of haplessness that have been used to explain the tragedy of their lives. & each explores, in entirely new ways, the themes
- at once timeless & urgent
- that have been at the heart of all of Caryl Phillips' work: belonging, identity, & race. " Foreigners" is among his most powerful, empathic, & profoundly affecting books.