The Bridge of Beyond (New York Review Books Classics) - Softcover

Schwarz-Bart, Simone

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590176804 ISBN 13: 9781590176801

Publisher: NYRB Classics, 2013

Synopsis

In this intoxicating tale of love and madness, mothers and daughters, folkloric wisdom and the grim legacy of slavery on the French Antillean island of Guadeloupe, aged yet unbowed Telumee tells her life story, along with that of the proud line of Lougandor women she continues to draw strength from, even in their physical absence. Having obtained, with dizzying speed, love and happiness and the trust of others, Telumee must find the resources, personal and collective, both to rejoice without reserve and then, in less fortunate seasons, to survive suffering that would crush weaker vessels. In the words of Queen Without a Name, the stoic and tender grandmother who raises her, Behind one pain there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. But the horse mustn t ride you, you must ride it.
A masterpiece of Caribbean literature, The Bridge of Beyond represents at once a gorgeously thick description of the flora and climate, crafts and customs of the island, and the triumph of a spirit so generous and hopeful that no earthly adversity could outlast it. Simone Schwarz-Bart s sinuous and lyrical prose, interwoven with proverbs and other local sayings, appears here in an uncommonly good translation by Barbara Bray.

About this title

Review:

'a superb work of caribbean literature'

--(Times Literary Supplement)

About the Author:

SIMONE SCHWARZ-BART was born in 1938 in southwestern France and moved, with her mother, to Guadeloupe when she was three months old. She later studied in France and married the Jewish French writer André Schwarz-Bart. In 1967 they published their joint novel, Un plat de porc aux bananes verts (A Dish of Pork with Green Bananas). Schwarz-Bart has traveled widely, living in Senegal and Switzerland, and now lives in Goyave, a small community in Guadeloupe. The Bridge of Beyond was awarded the literary prize of the French magazine Elle.
JAMAICA KINCAID is a Caribbean novelist, gardener, and gardening writer. Her short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review and The New Yorker, where her novel Lucy was originally serialized. Her first book, At the Bottom of the River, was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and she has gone on to write more than fifteen books, including A Small Place, Annie John, and Mr. Potter. She has received the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, the Prix Femina Étranger, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Lila Wallace-Reader s Digest Award. Kincaid lives in North Bennington, Vermont, during the summers and teaches at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Her new novel, See Now Then, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February 2013.
BARBARA BRAY was an influential translator of twentieth century French literature into English. She was an early champion of Marguerite Duras, and also translated the work of Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Anouilh and Alain Robbe-Grillet. She worked as a script editor for the BBC in the 1950s, and there commissioned radio plays by young writers such as Harold Pinter. For over thirty years she had a close relationship with Samuel Beckett, and was one of the few people with whom he shared his thoughts and works in progress.

About this edition

• Publisher: NYRB Classics
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1590176804
• ISBN 13: 9781590176801
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256