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© 2000 Kathy Craig |
Little Bee
by Chris Cleave
June 2011
Synopsis
"From the author of the international bestseller "Incendiary" comes a haunting novel about the tenuous friendship that blooms between two disparate strangers—one an illegal Nigerian refugee, the other a recent widow from suburban London." (Publisher)
Reviews
- "…immensely readable and moving …While the pretext of Little Bee initially seems contrived —two strangers, a British woman and a Nigerian girl, meet on a lonely African beach and become inextricably bound through the horror imprinted on their encounter—its impact is hardly shallow. Rather than focusing on postcolonial guilt or African angst, Cleave uses his emotionally charged narrative to challenge his readers' conceptions of civility, of ethical choice." (New York Times)
- "…Little Bee will blow you away…[Cleave] has carved two indelible characters whose choices in even the most straitened circumstances permit them dignity—if they are willing to sacrifice for it. Little Bee is the best kind of political novel: You're almost entirely unaware of its politics because the book doesn't deal in abstractions but in human beings." (The Washington Post)
- "A violent incident on a Nigerian beach has tragic echoes in posh London in Cleave's beautifully staged if haphazardly plotted second novel. British couple Andrew O'Rourke and his wife, Sarah, are on vacation when they come across two sisters, Little Bee and Nkiruka, on the run from the killers who have massacred everyone else in their village and what happens there with this unlikely encounter, is the mystery that propels the novel. Two years later, Little Bee, in possession of Andrew's license, shows up at Sarah's house to learn that it is the day of Andrew's funeral. He's committed suicide. Sarah is determined to help Little Bee get refugee status despite Little Bee's later revelation concerning Andrew's death. Cleave (Incendiary) has a sharp cinematic eye, and humanizes disturbing issues around refugees and the situation in Africa, but the story is undermined by weak motivations and coincidences." (Publishers Weekly)
Book Club Rating and Comments
If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.
Other Books by Chris Cleave
- "Incendiary"