Review #4
A Small Place
Chris Wilcox
“Do I look out of place? Are those people disgusted at me? Am I unwanted here?” These are questions very few people ask themselves every day and even less so when it comes to being a tourist. Yet this is something that is a common theme within [...]
Tasha Rennie
A Small Place Review
In Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, the author takes her reader on an unexpected and thought-provoking journey to the place where she grew up. Antigua is a small island in the Caribbean, formerly of British rule, that is now a popular tourist destination. The book is split into four untitled sections. [...]
Jamaica Kincaid, a native Antiguan, acts as a reader’s tour guide through the picturesque sights and fascinating history of “A Small Place”, Antigua. Kincaid is a very passionate tour guide, who is an enormous wealth of information on Antiguan past, both as a colony of the British Empire and after its independence as a post-colonial [...]
On the surface Tsitsi Dangarembga’s bildungroman, Nervous Conditions, presents the compelling coming of age story of a young Zimbabwean girl, Tambu. Once the surface is scratched Tambu’s story becomes a powerful tool in comprehending the realities, effects and legacies of colonialism. Dangarembga, once a young Zimbabwean girl herself succeeds in giving an outsider a genuine insiders perspective into what has been coined colonialism. She understands that to many it may seem so distant, abstract and broad. She challenges this by providing a medium, Tambu, whom we can see and walk through her village and life with.
Images of Colonialism
By Johannes Valdes
Born in 1959 at the Colony of Rhodesia in Zimbabwe, Tsitsi Dangarembga wrote Nervous Conditions during her mid-twenties. Her novel takes us through the complex portrayal of the challenges a young Rhodesian girl must face as she leaves her impoverished background to gain an education. Tambu, the protagonist, realizes that the [...]
Ashley Westenberg
Eng Lit 213
The Results of Colonialism
Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel Nervous Conditions is a story narrated by Tambu a girl who lives in Rhodesia a colony of England. Tambu’s journey of coming of age allows the reader a chance to step into the life of a young African woman and witness her desire to rise above [...]
By Chantal Strand
Derek Walcott’s Jean Rhys examines a snapshot of British colonial life, focusing on a family in which there are several generations of women, each struggling with the conventions and expectations of the times. Through the application of sensory images, Walcott uses Jean Rhys to illustrate the effects of repression on women of all [...]
