Synopses & Reviews
Set in 1942 on the imagined island of San Carlos, a cultural cocktail of Trinidad, Cuba, and Jamaica, this is the story of Estrella Thompson, a headstrong fourteen-year-old girl whoand#8217;s forced to fend for herself when sheand#8217;s banished from the isolated fishing village where sheand#8217;s lived all her life.
Colin Channerand#8217;s major works of fiction include the novel Waiting in Vain and the story collection Passing Through, which Junot Dand#237;az described as and#147;a splendid collection by one of the Caribbean Diasporaand#8217;s finest writers.and#8221; He also edited Iron Balloons: Hit Fiction from Jamaicaand#8217;s Calabash Writerand#8217;s Workshop (Akashic Books, 2006). Channer is an assistant professor of English and the coordinator of the BA creative writing program at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York.
Synopsis
"This is a jewel of a book. Channer's language is dancing and juicy, his vision penetrating, and his hero is magnificent." --Booklist, Starred Review
"Channer is a gifted storyteller." --Washington Post
The Girl with the Golden Shoes is a dazzling and picaresque novella of equal parts Gabriel Garc a M rquez, Mark Twain, and Bob Marley. Set in 1942, on the imagined island of San Carlos, a cultural cocktail of Trinidad, Cuba, and Jamaica, it tells the story of Estrella Thompson, a 14-year-old who's forced to fend for herself when she's banished from the isolated fishing village where she's lived all her life. Her crime? Wanting to read and write.
But Estrella is no victim. Neither is she an ordinary child. Prematurely ripe in body and mind, and contemptuous of the boundaries placed on her by gender, race, and social class, she takes the villagers' rejection as a chance to change her life. She wants to go to Europe, the place where everything interesting seems to happen, including the war, which she's heard about incessantly on rediffusion radio. But she has to get money for a ticket on a steamer, which means she has to get a job--which means she has to get a pair of shoes . . . and she's never worn a pair in her life.
Estrella's journey goes awry when she takes the wrong bus and ends up in a hostile town. From the one-armed madman who steals her belongings, to the lonely black truck driver who forces her to listen to his lecture on politics and race, to the Spanish Creole seducer who rides into her life on horseback, to the white soldiers who attempt to break her spirit--the characters that come into Estrella's life are as changed by her as she is by them.
The Girl with the Golden Shoes is a deftly-written story that swims against the tide of cynicism that has come to dominate the best American fiction. Its propulsive plot is driven by a heroine who's too naive to back down and too smart to swap hope for disillusion as a central belief.
Synopsis
A dazzling coming-of-age novella by Jamaica's best-selling writer.
Synopsis
Fiction. African-American Studies. Set in 1942 on the imagined island of San Carlos, a cultural cocktail of Trinidad, Cuba, and Jamaica, this is the story of Estrella Thompson, a headstrong fourteen year-old girl who's forced to fend for herself when she's banished from the isolated fishing village where she's lived all her life.
About the Author
Colin Channer is a Jamaican writer, often referred to as "Bob Marley with a pen," due to the spiritual, sensual, social themes presented from a literary Jamaican perspective. Indeed, his first two full length novels, Waiting in Vain and Satisfy My Soul, bear the titles of well known Marley songs. He has also written the short story collection Passing Through, and the novellas I'm Still Waiting" and "The Girl with the Golden Shoes." Some of his short stories have been anthologized.