Abeng
Subtitle: a novel
By: Michelle Cliff.
Publisher: Persephone Press
Published: 1983
Place of publication: Watertown, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 167
Description: "Abeng" is a kind of prequel to the highly acclaimed novel (No Telephone to Heaven) and is a small masterpiece in its own right. Here Clare is twelve years old, the light-skinned daughter of a middle-class family, growing up among the complex contradictions of class versus color, blood versus history, harsh reality versus delusion, in a colonized country. In language that surrounds us with a richness of meaning and voices, the several strands of young Clare's heritage are explored: the Maroons, who used the conch shell - the abeng - to pass messages as they fought a guerilla struggle against their English enslavers; and the legacy of Clare's white great-great-grandfather, Judge Savage, who burned his hundred slaves on the eve of their emancipation. A lyrical, explosive coming-of-age story combined with a provocative retelling of the colonial history of Jamaica, this novel is a triumph.