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A review by jada
The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories by John Wickham, Stewart Brown
3.0
I have about 50 pages left but I'm calling it quits because I don't have the will to finish it. I think it says something about the overall quality of the book when the preface was the most interesting part. The strong preface combined with the great first story gave me high hopes, but they were ultimately dashed as I was hit with like five stories which were so boring they could only technically be considered stories. Some of them didn't really have a plot, they were more of just describing a scene, and even some of those that did have plots were so mid I had to wonder why bother.
It wasn't all bad though, I was exposed to a wide variety of caribbean writers, and there were some amazing stories in here, which were the only thing keeping me reading. I also found that the translated works tended to be more interesting than the ones written originally in English.
The stories I liked were
1. some people are meant to live alone—frank collymore
2. rosena on the mountain—rene depestre
3. buried statues—antonio benitez rojo
4. the nightwatchman's occurrence book—vs naipaul
5. leaving this island place—austin clarke
6. the breadnut and the breadfruit—marys conde
7. do angels wear brassieres—olive senior
8. goodbye mother—reinaldo arenas
9. the inheritance of my father—astrid roemer
10.nineteen thirty-seven—edwidge danticat
It wasn't all bad though, I was exposed to a wide variety of caribbean writers, and there were some amazing stories in here, which were the only thing keeping me reading. I also found that the translated works tended to be more interesting than the ones written originally in English.
The stories I liked were
1. some people are meant to live alone—frank collymore
2. rosena on the mountain—rene depestre
3. buried statues—antonio benitez rojo
4. the nightwatchman's occurrence book—vs naipaul
5. leaving this island place—austin clarke
6. the breadnut and the breadfruit—marys conde
7. do angels wear brassieres—olive senior
8. goodbye mother—reinaldo arenas
9. the inheritance of my father—astrid roemer
10.nineteen thirty-seven—edwidge danticat