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An Island / Karen Jennings.

By: Material type: TextLanguage: English Publisher: New York, New York : Hogarth, May 17, 2022Copyright date: ©2019Edition: First editionDescription: 224 pagesContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
Audience:
  • General
  • Any audience
ISBN:
  • 9780593446522
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Online version:: Island.DDC classification:
  • 823/.92 23/eng/20211008
LOC classification:
  • PR9369.4.J48 I85 2022
Summary: "Samuel has lived alone on a small island off the coast of an unnamed African country for more than two decades. He tends to his garden, his lighthouse, and his chickens, content with a solitary life. Routinely, the nameless bodies of refugees wash ashore, but Samuel--who understands that the government only values certain lives, certain deaths--always buries them himself. One day, though, he finds that one of these bodies is still breathing. As he nurses the stranger back to life, Samuel--feeling unsettled and strangely threatened--is soon swept up in memories of his former life as a political prisoner on the mainland: a life that saw his country exploited under colonial rule, followed by a period of revolution and a brief, hard-won independence, only for the cycle of suffering to continue under a cruel dictator. And he can't help but recall his own shameful role in that history. In this stranger's presence he begins to consider, as he did in his youth: What does it mean to own land, or to belong to it? And what does it cost to have--and lose--a home? A timeless and gripping portrait of regret, fear, and the extraordinary stakes of companionship, An Island is a story as page-turning as it is profound"--. Provided by publisher.
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Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Barcode
Books John Tomay Memorial Library Fiction FIC JEN (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 31030100272590

Originally published in Great Britain by Holland House Books in 2020.

new book 2022 spring.

"Samuel has lived alone on a small island off the coast of an unnamed African country for more than two decades. He tends to his garden, his lighthouse, and his chickens, content with a solitary life. Routinely, the nameless bodies of refugees wash ashore, but Samuel--who understands that the government only values certain lives, certain deaths--always buries them himself. One day, though, he finds that one of these bodies is still breathing. As he nurses the stranger back to life, Samuel--feeling unsettled and strangely threatened--is soon swept up in memories of his former life as a political prisoner on the mainland: a life that saw his country exploited under colonial rule, followed by a period of revolution and a brief, hard-won independence, only for the cycle of suffering to continue under a cruel dictator. And he can't help but recall his own shameful role in that history. In this stranger's presence he begins to consider, as he did in his youth: What does it mean to own land, or to belong to it? And what does it cost to have--and lose--a home? A timeless and gripping portrait of regret, fear, and the extraordinary stakes of companionship, An Island is a story as page-turning as it is profound"--. Provided by publisher.

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