![](https://image.librarything.com/pics/fugue21/magnifier-left.png)
![The Atlantic Sound by Caryl Phillips](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/P/0375701036.01._SX180_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The Atlantic Sound (original 2000; edition 2001)by Caryl Phillips
Work InformationThe Atlantic Sound by Caryl Phillips (2000)
![]() None No current Talk conversations about this book. ![]() ![]() Caryl Phillips explores, both literally and figuratively, the transatlantic slave-trade route between Europe, Africa, and America, in The Atlantic Sound. In each of the 3 parts of the book he visits a part of 'the triangle,' Liverpool, Ghana, and Charleston, and tells the histories of these places and how they were affected by the slave trade. And he does it wonderfully! The Atlantic Sound just sucked me in. It's one of those books you read and lose track of time, then look up an hour later without realizing you've been reading for more than 5 or 10 minutes. Despite the emotional subject, Caryl delivered it in a way as to make it readable, yet no less alarming, due in large part to his storytelling ability. His 'characters' jump out of the page at you, he really brought these historical figures to life. Most important, in my opinion, is how the author's personality seeps through the pages. Witty, a bit snarky, and hopelessy pessimistic most of the time. Loved it. The books is a riveting read, I came upon it 'randomly' and am so happy I did. 4 stars! no reviews | add a review
Liverpool, England; Accra, Ghana; Charleston, South Carolina. These were the points of the triangle forming the major route of the transatlantic slave trade. And these are the cities that acclaimed author Caryl Phillips explores--physically, historically, psychologically--in this wide-ranging meditation on the legacy of slavery and the impact of the African diaspora on the life of a place and its people. In a brilliantly layered narrative, Phillips combines his own observations with the stories of figures from the past. The experiences of an African trader in nineteenth-century Liverpool are contrasted with Phillips's experience of the city, where, as a Carib-bean black, he is scorned by the city's "native" blacks. His interactions with American Pan-Africanists coming "home" to Ghana (and with those Ghanaians for whom leaving seems the best hope) are paired with the account of a British-trained African minister in eighteenth-century Accra who turned a blind eye to the slave trade flourishing around him. The story of a white judge who disrupted "the natural order" in Charleston by integrating the Democratic primary in 1947 is set against Phillips's search for remnants of the "pest houses" where slaves were "seasoned" be-fore being sold. Phillips weaves these narrative threads together with acute insight and a novelist's grasp of time, place and character. The result is a provocative and unexpected book, at once historically illuminating and profoundly affecting. From the Hardcover edition. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)382.44Social sciences Commerce, Communications, Transportation International commerce, Foreign trade By ProductLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |