num_pages: 441
description: Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady, Queenie, raised as a farmer's daughter, befriends Gilbert, and later Hortense, with innocence and courage, until the unexpected arrival of her husband, Bernard, who returns from combat with issues of his own to resolve. Told in these four voices, Small Island is a courageous novel of tender emotion and sparkling wit, of crossings taken and passages lost, of shattering compassion and of reckless optimism in the face of insurmountable barriers---in short, an encapsulation of the immigrant's life.
language: English
title: Small Island
titlecomplete: Small Island
genres: Historical, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Race, British Literature, War, Fiction, World War II
ratings_count: 33951
places: British Empire, London, England
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Whitbread Award
category: Novel and Book of the Year, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best Book Overall
publisher: Picador USA