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”Kerry Young is a standalone talent in the new emerging generation of writers from the Caribbean region. Read her if you want to know about the Caribbean” – Monique Roffey, winner of the OCM BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature
”A vivid portrayal … Kerry Young”s heartfelt, sparky and affecting debut novel is a chronicle of multicultural Jamaica, both in its cultural richness and in its strife and tensions”
– Guardian
”A pacy but absorbing saga of domestic struggle and gangland manoeuvring set against the violent backdrop of postwar Jamaican politics”
– Independent on Sunday
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From the author of the Costa and Commonwealth Prize-shortlisted Pao
Jamaica, 1938. Gloria Campbell is sixteen years old when a single violent act changes her life forever. She and her younger sister flee their hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. As all around them the city convulses with political change, Gloria”s desperation and striking beauty lead her to Sybil and Beryl, and a house of ill-repute where she meets Yang Pao, a Kingston racketeer whose destiny becomes irresistibly bound with her own.
Sybil kindles in Gloria a fire of social justice which will propel her to Cuba and a personal and political awakening that she must reconcile with the realities of her life, her love of Jamaica and a past that is never far behind her.
Set against the turbulent backdrop of a country on the cusp of a new era,
Gloria is an enthralling and illuminating story of love and redemption.
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”Gloria is a brilliant, observant, sometimes complex read, but with clear and simple messages, it speaks to the feminist and equal rights campaigner in all of us *****”
– Western Mail
”A very authentic portrayal of a woman”s lot in 1950s, 1960s Jamaica. I fell in love with Gloria and was turning over the pages rapidly, willing her to conquer her situation. A triumph” – Alex Wheatle, author of
Brenton Brown
”A highly evocative portrait of a country in transition, and of one woman”s search for self-awareness and self-respect”
– Mail on Sunday