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Adobe DRM
Product Details
Free Press, February 2010
eBook, 224 pages
ISBN-10: 143917296X
ISBN-13: 9781439172964
Description
A shattering, poetic and raw first novel set among young Somalian refugees in the slums of London -- beginning with a double suicide and ending with a rebirth.
In a community where poverty is kept close and passed from one generation to the next, two teenage boys, best friends, stand on top of twin tower blocks. Facing each other across the abyss of London's urban sprawl, they say their good-byes and jump. One dies. The other, alternating with the sister of the deceased, narrates this novel.
James gives us a window into the inner city -- his mom is a crack addict, his gang "brothers" force him to kill another black boy. Meina describes with feeling her family history in Somalia: after her parents are killed before her eyes, her village aunt sells her to six husbands -- before she is even a teenager. Desperate to rebuild their lives, James and Meina set out to find the place for which every child longs -- home.
Brutal and shockingly violent in places, rambunctious and lively in others and slyly, dryly witty in yet others, Meina and James's journey toward life through their past is ultimately a powerful story of redemptive love and the debut of an extraordinary literary talent.
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"This is tautly constructed, graphic, angry, powerful fiction."
-- Catherine Taylor, The Guardian
"A modern-day Richard Wright."
-- William Leith, The Observer (UK)
"Vivid and energizing.... Breathtakingly fresh.... [Its] authenticity comes from a dazzling, painterly quality of realization and from a playful dance with the morality tale."
-- Nicola Field, Socialist Review
"An assured debut."
-- Ian Thomson, Times Literary Supplement
"Akinti weaves a tale of discovery."
-- Pride
"...shines an unflinching light on the disparity of race and class...with an activist spirit akin to Richard Wright...Akinti crafts vivid young characters struggling to define themselves amid the chaos of families and communities entrenches in crime. The grit is tempered with an unlikely love story, affirmin gthe power of the human spirit and signaling the arrival of a major new literary talent."- Chris Kompanek, Flavorpill
"...shines an unflinching light on the disparity of race and class...with an activist spirit akin to Richard Wright...Akinti crafts vivid young characters struggling to define themselves amid the chaos of families and communities entrenches in crime. The grit is tempered with an unlikely love story, affirmin gthe power of the human spirit and signaling the arrival of a major new literary talent."- Chris Kompanek, Flavorpill
"...shines an unflinching light on the disparity of race and class...with an activist spirit akin to Richard Wright...Akinti crafts vivid young characters struggling to define themselves amid the chaos of families and communities entrenches in crime. The grit is tempered with an unlikely love story, affirmin gthe power of the human spirit and signaling the arrival of a major new literary talent."- Chris Kompanek, Flavorpill
"...absorbing...poetic....Akinti['s] atempt to detail the contemporary black British experience is visceral and immediate....most engaging is the neighborhood itself..."Forest Gate" is hot with fury....The novel elegantly illustrates contemporary Britain's failure to assimilate its immigrants [...] Akinti has acquitted hismelf with substantial elan and transformed a grim place into a thing of beauty." - Simon Akam, The New York Times Book Review
Editors' Choice, The New York Times
"Akinti's first novel is a visceral attempt to detail the harsh lives of the poor and black in Britain."-The New York Times
"Hard to put down...Akinti is a master of setting a scene quickly and efficiently...Akinti's narrative is crisp and intriguing, jumpy but arresting- glimpses intoa nightmare."
-- Mobile Register
London Evening Standard, January 26, 2010
...Richard Long. The literature prize sees Waters' The Little Stranger nominated against Adam Foulds' The Quickening Maze and Peter Akinti's debut novel Forest Gate. The South Bank Show Awards, which are being held at the Dorchester Hotel in ...
Hartlepool Mail, January 25, 2010
...Richard Long. The literature prize sees Waters' The Little Stranger nominated against Adam Foulds' The Quickening Maze and Peter Akinti's debut novel Forest Gate. The South Bank Show Awards, which are being held at the Dorchester Hotel in ...
Mirror.co.uk, January 7, 2010
...Little Stranger nominated against Adam Foulds's exploration of John Clare's madness in The Quickening Maze and Peter Akinti's debut novel Forest Gate. In theatre, Jez Butterworth's highly acclaimed production Jerusalem at The Royal Court - ...
Birmingham Post, January 7, 2010
...Little Stranger nominated against Adam Foulds’s exploration of John Clare’s madness in The Quickening Maze and Peter Akinti’s debut novel Forest Gate. In theatre, Jez Butterworth’s highly acclaimed production Jerusalem at The Royal ...
Kenilworth Weekly News, January 7, 2010
...Little Stranger nominated against Adam Foulds's exploration of John Clare's madness in The Quickening Maze and Peter Akinti's debut novel Forest Gate. In theatre, Jez Butterworth's highly acclaimed production Jerusalem at The Royal Court - ...
