Overall, Little Bee is an interesting book to read. However, I would suggest that you brace yourself. It is a moving, bittersweet novel that will leave you saddened yet inspired by the sheer determination of a sixteen year old, Nigerian refugee to survive and her ability to remain compassionate despite the horrors she has experienced.
little bee book review ny times
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The Other Hand, also known as Little Bee, is a 2008 novel by British author Chris Cleave. It is a dual narrative story about a Nigerian asylum-seeker and a British magazine editor, who meet during the oil conflict in the Niger Delta, and are re-united in England several years later. Cleave, inspired as a university student by his temporary employment in an asylum detention centre, wrote the book in an attempt to humanise the plight of asylum-seekers in Britain. The novel examines the treatment of refugees by the asylum system, as well as issues of British colonialism, globalization, political violence and personal accountability.
The novel was published by Sceptre, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton. Sales were initially slow, but increased as a result of "word-of-mouth" publicity, with the book eventually ranking 13th on the 2009 Sunday Times bestseller list. It has also been ranked #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The novel has received mixed reviews from critics. It has been praised for its focus on underlying human decency; however, some reviewers felt its events were contrived. The two protagonists have been juxtaposed, with less sympathy evoked by Surrey-born Sarah than Nigerian-refugee Little Bee. The novel was nominated for the 2008 Costa Book Awards and a 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. A film adaptation is now in pre-production, and will be produced by and star Julia Roberts. Amazon Studios will be distributing the film.
Cleave spent his early childhood in West Africa, which he credits for having partially inspired The Other Hand. Further inspiration came from Cleaves's temporary employment while studying experimental psychology at the University of Oxford. During the summer, Cleave painted underpasses, gardened and picked up litter, and hoped to use this experience to write a book. His final job was at Campsfield House in Oxfordshire, an immigration detention centre. Cleave spent three days serving food to residents from war zones including Somalia, Eritrea and the Balkans. He explained: "I got talking with some of them and said why are you here? Why are you in prison? It's not illegal and yet we concentrate them in these places. It's a text-book definition of a concentration camp. The conditions are appalling. I was shocked enough for that to be the end of my light comedy book of my amusing summers working as a labourer."[1] Cleave believes he would not have written the novel were he not a parent, as he does not wish for his children "to grow up into a world that is callous and stupid."[1]
In 2005, an incident inspired Cleave to write The Other Hand. Four years previously, in 2001, an Angolan asylum-seeker named Manuel Bravo had arrived in England with his 9-year-old son. After being detained in an immigration centre for four years, officials decided to forcibly deport Bravo and his son back to Angola the next morning. During the night, Bravo committed suicide, aware that his son, who was still a minor, could not be deported unaccompanied.[2][3] Cleave felt compelled to write about the "dirty secret" that is the British immigration system, and to do so in such a way as to showcase the "unexpected humour" of the refugees wherever possible, in order to make the book "an enjoyable and compelling read" for his audience.[2] Cleave explained:
Little Bee is detained and quickly deported back to Nigeria, where she believes she will be killed. Lawrence uses his Home Office connections to track Little Bee's deportation details, and Sarah and Charlie are able to accompany her back home. Sarah believes that Little Bee will be safe as long as she is present, and together they begin collecting stories for a book Andrew had begun, and which Sarah intends to finish on his behalf, about the atrocities committed in the Nigerian oil conflict. During a trip to the same beach where they first encountered one another, soldiers arrive to take Little Bee away. Despite being captured, Little Bee is not dispirited, and instead is ultimately hopeful at the sight of Charlie playing happily with a group of Nigerian children.
The primary characters in The Other Hand are Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee, and Sarah, a middle-class Englishwoman. Critics have focused on the contrast between the two, with Caroline Elkins of The New York Times commenting that Sarah might initially appear "insipid" to readers, and that when juxtaposed with Little Bee, she seems "unsympathetic, even tiresome".[5] Tim Teeman of The Times deemed Sarah "batty, bizarre and inconsistent, and despite the tragedy she has suffered, unsympathetic", while writing that in contrast: "Goodness peppers every atom of [Little Bee's] being."[6] Other reviewers took an opposite stance. Margot Kaminski of the San Francisco Chronicle found Little Bee's characterisation problematic, writing: "Sometimes she's not convincing, and sometimes she tries too hard to convince. It's too often apparent that Little Bee is not real. This doesn't do justice to her story, and puts the burden back on the author to show that he's representing her, rather than exploiting her."[7] Ed Lake of The Daily Telegraph felt that "Bee's arch reasonableness and implausibly picturesque speech mean she often comes off as a too-cute cipher", and ultimately found Sarah the more convincing character.[8]
The Other Hand presents a critique of the British asylum system and attitude towards asylum-seekers. Cleave feels there exists a "general lethargy" about the way asylum-seekers are treated in Britain, and though he believes he is not a political writer, the book begins with an extract from a 2005 UK Home Office publication entitled "United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship". The extract reads: "Britain is proud of its tradition of providing a safe haven for people fleeting (sic) persecution and conflict." Cleave questioned: "If a government can't even successfully proof-read such a fundamental document, how seriously can we take its asylum procedure?"[1] In writing The Other Hand, Cleave hoped to "humanise" the issue for readers.[12] Despite discussions of political violence and British Colonialism within the novel,[5] Sarah L. Courteau, editor of the Wilson Quarterly commented: "You're almost entirely unaware of its politics because the book doesn't deal in abstractions but in human beings." For this reason, she deemed The Other Hand "the best kind of political novel".[13] Emma Philip of The Courier-Mail has opined that while The Other Hand does make political points, readers should not confuse it with a political book, as the "overwhelming beauty" of the relationship between Sarah, Little Bee and Charlie "far outweighs the political message."[14]
Marital infidelity features throughout the sections of the novel narrated by Sarah. Cleave discussed: "When you are choosing a lover, you're choosing a philosophy; it's not about sex, it's not about marriage. With Sarah, her unfaithfulness is just one of the symptoms of the fact that she's torn and is going to have to make this strong moral choice."[1] Sarah's storyline also explores her moral culpability following Andrew's suicide.[13] Personal accountability is a central theme of the novel, with Elkins of The New York Times opining that by not focusing on "postcolonial guilt or African angst", Cleave is able to use the novel to challenge readers' conceptions of civility and ethical choice.[5] Margot Kaminski of the San Francisco Chronicle similarly feels that the book delivered a message of anti-complacency, however believes that it does so by "bemoaning the normality of the First World in the face of the horrors of the Third."[7] She deemed The Other Hand essentially a novel about "the borders we draw, and the real damage they inflict".[7]
Having spent almost two years working on the novel, Cleave decided upon using the dual narrative, as: "This is a story of two worlds: the developed and the developing, and of the mutual incomprehension that sometimes dooms them to antagonism."[2] He found it technically challenging to write from a female perspective, but felt that it prevented him from unwittingly using his own voice to animate the characters, explaining: "It forces me to listen, to think, and to write more precisely."[2] Kaminski accused Cleave of cultural appropriation, asking rhetorically: "When a white male author writes as a young Nigerian girl, is it an act of empathy, or identity theft?"[7] Cleave has responded by stating that he sympathises with those who feel he has no right to write from the perspective of a Nigerian girl, but feels that he does it well. He believes that the best mechanism for telling a story about crossing borderlines is to depict both sides. He conducted interviews with actual asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, a psychiatrist specialising in the trauma of child refugees, and members of London's Nigerian community, researching speech patterns to shape the "quirks and cadences" of Little Bee's narrative voice.[11]
The novel was first published on 7 August 2008, released in hardback by Sceptre in the UK.[16] The hardback edition sold just 3,000 copies in 2008,[12] however the publication of a paperback copy, released on 5 February 2009,[17] saw increased sales, with 100,000 paperback copies sold in Britain in March and April 2009,[12] despite no advertising and little marketing for the novel.[18] As of November 2009, 300,000 copies of the novel had been sold.[19] Richard Brooks of The Times attributed its success to recommendations from readers to family and friends, with Cleave calling it "an example of word-of-mouth success."[12] The novel was published in America and Canada by Simon & Schuster under the alternative title Little Bee.[20] It was released in hardback and e-book format in February 2009,[21][22] and in paperback in February 2010.[23] Cleave likes both titles, believing that The Other Hand "speaks to the dichotomous nature of the novel, with its two narrators and two worlds", also referencing Sarah's injury, while Little Bee is appropriate as the novel is really the telling of Little Bee's story, and sounds "bright and approachable", in line with his aim to write "an accessible story about a serious subject."[2] 2ff7e9595c
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